Pearl

"There is a woman in Somalia scraping for pearls by the roadside.
There is a force stronger than nature
Keeps her will alive
That is how she lives her life
She is dying to survive
I don’t know what she's made of
I would like to be that brave"

She walks with bare feet over ruptured glass bottles and promises made and broken in haste.
Her face is wilted and her children are remnants and reminders that she is...if not only once upon a time a woman of purpose and worth.
Nail beds cradle last week’s sediment and sense of sanity.
She whispers secrets to Heaven in desperation.
Presses tear streaked cheek bone against sunshine and eardrum to treetop murmurings...
Prays for mercy and reprieve from suffering and sleepless nights...
Through perched eyelids, windstorms and moonshine at midnight
God finally sends his reply...
She listens with urgency and monarch butterfly wing filled growling stomach lining...
Hopes his answer is intoxicated with phantasms of her
Fate
Or destiny
Or breadcrumbs leading to bed sheets
Cloaked with lavender pillow sprays and soy candle wax...
Or something familiar
He whispers:
"You are the result of irritation with purpose
Black-lipped oyster peril and warm water persuasion...
Prototype purity wielded perfection is you."
Her bent burnt brown sugar back is both safe house and shelter
Blind men make jest of her backside exposed to pavement...
Brow beaten and beauty
She is resilience and rarity molded like the contours of eternity.

"There is a woman in Somalia scraping for pearls by the roadside.
There is a force stronger than nature
Keeps her will alive
That is how she lives her life
She is dying to survive
I don’t know what she's made of
I would like to be that brave"