spirit daughter of oya

* * *

I’ve seen willowy women before but
she was different. More barky with green sap.
There is a tale of a female bandit,
our one-girl outlaw, who had the mishap
to see Oya (she of the black horse tail
and the swirling skirts that cause hurricanes)
undressing. Oya is more than female,
more than male. She is both, neither. She trains
Yoruba women in the art of war.
Some say Oya turned the one-girl outlaw
into a tree, which I doubt, since others
say the girl died in Lokoja’s bazaar
due to a hex. I’ve been to Lokoja,
that makes sense. It’s a city of horrors.

* * *

Notes:

Lokoja is located in central Nigeria, a port city on the Niger river.

Oya is a West African goddess of war, cemetery gates and personification of the Niger River.