Mayari

  The moon god's light is all over the village.

I have to be up and about

in this wee hour of the morning

 to lovingly caress my strands

and lavish my skin

with sweet coconut oil.

The tall Caucasian man visited our tribe 

on the fourth day of this week.

 He said he will be back today

to teach me how to read this thing he calls book.

Oh gee! I love to touch his curly brown locks

and stare at his blue eyes.

Something in the way he gazes at my body

sends a tingly sensation inside of me.

Oh yes, he smells extremely masculine!

Unlike the men around here 

whose breath reek of tobacco 

and wild boar's stench.

Today, I will tell him who I am.

 My Ina named me after the goddess of the moon

whose beauty illumines the entire kingdom of 

Diwatas.

I am 

Mayari.

Image Credit: Monhegan's Schoolteacher, 2004 by Jamie Wyeth