My Children Poem by Lekan Malik

I am not barren.
Indeed, I am fruitful.
At least, I have a child, a son.
A son with the value
Of one million children.
That to me, it’s a pride.
And when he is ripe
To encounter the challenges
Of marriage,
There I must be
To watch him keenly
To choose rib of his ribs,
The one taken out of him.
For his choice
Shall also be mine, my daughter.

They shall be my children
And I, their mother.
Patiently, I would wait
For my request in her to manifest.
And when I see it,
I know it and its name.
Once, it did came to me.
When it begins to swell
Like a painful boil,
And rounder like planet earth,
My heart would become immense.
My hands, stretched out
To receive my child, my third child.

So fulfilled I would be,
To be the mother of three.
My son, his wife and their first child.
Then I will give a sigh.
A sigh of rest and relief and fulfillment.
But at the safe delivery
Of their next conception,
I will then say,
I am now a grandmother.
And this shall be called
My grandchild.