doro beer and play in my hair
and I tell you, in none of these things I find any offense.
And I say to him
This tree, do you live in it?
He say, There is no you, only we and we are a strange house.
Stay with us as long as you wish.
When I climb through a hole and sit in the spot
I see he coming, bringing back meat
I say, Who is the man so sour with the eye of a wolf?
Who curse him so?
But children little, children big, children who is but air
run down the tree and stampede him
and don’t care that he cursing would scare the owl.
And they jump up on him and sit on his head, and rest under his arm
And I thinking these children have big feelings for this man,
and the sour face gone.
And the Wolf Eye climb up the top and stop when he see me,
and keep climbing.
And when he reach the top, he see the other man,
and they put lips together, and open their mouths,
I know.
The one with the wolf eye, he is the one
who says, The night is getting old, why are you not sleeping?
The sun is in the sky, why are you not waking?
Food is ready
when are you going to eat it?
Did the gods curse me and make me a mother?
No he blessed me and made you my wife,
the one called Mossi say,
and the children laugh, and the Wolf Eye scowl
And scowl, and scowl, and scowl into a laugh.
I was there, I see it.
And I see it when they chase all the children out and say go,
go to the river now,
and stay ’til the sun start to shift
And when they all gone, they think I gone too
For Mossi speak the Wolf Eye own tongue
Se ge yi ye do bo, he say
Se ge yi ye do bo
Let us love each other
For they two, they grab each other and kiss lip
then kiss tongue,
then kiss neck and nipple
and lower.
And one was the woman, and one was the man,
and both was the woman, and both was the man,
and neither was neither.
And the Wolf Eye, he rest his head in Mossi lap.
Mossi, he be rubbing the Wolf Eye’s chest.
They just stay there looking at each other,
eye studying eye.
Face at rest
maybe they sharing a dream.
One day Wolf Eye call them all together.
Children, he say, come out from the river
and present yourselves
you not raised by the jackal or the hyena.
And each child present me his name,
but their names I have all forgotten.
This is what Wolf Eye say.
He say, Mossi I am Ku,
and a Ku man can only be one kind of man
and Mossi said to him, How are you not a man
what do I grab between the legs
Mossi make joke
Wolf Eye not making joke.
He say
I been running, I been hiding, I been looking for
something that I don’t know, but I know I looking for it
And I don’t know, but every Ku find it
but there is blood between me and the Ku
and I could never go back.
So he call the Gangatom
And the Gangatom chief say, Nobody ever wait so long,
I’ve been waiting all my life, Wolf Eye say.
And Wolf Eye pull his tunic and say,
Look at me, look where there is woman,
And when I cut it off I will be a man
and Mossi he catch a fright, for he think if this is what make him love him,
But Wolf Eye say, Everything between me and you,
eastern man, is not down there, but up here,
he say and point to his heart.
And the chief say,
What you asking for not old,
what you asking for new.
You is Ku
and you have no father.
In this way you enrage the gods.
Says the Wolf Eye:
The ceremony to become a man
is in praise of the gods, and so
how could any god be mad.
So Wolf Eye,
The Gangatom prick the cow and spill the blood
in a bowl
Wolf Eye drink one then two
he drink and wipe his mouth.
The next day come,
For him to jump the bulls.
They line them up, twenty strong
plus ten more for he take too late to be a man
You have to run on the backs of bulls and you cannot fall,
For if you fall, the gods laugh
So Wolf Eye,
He naked in oil and shea butter.
Then praise the gods, he run
bull back to bull back, one two three four
five six seven more.
And the people cheer and rejoice
The elder say all these moons you in the in-between place
and there is no shame,
but middle is nowhere.
But some of the elders, they say
he not coming from the enki paata.
He not been wandering for four moons
as a boy