The daughter collects her mother as she spills,
the winds rustling, running, rushing,
to steal the scent of this liquid memory.
The mother nurtures, nurtures, nurtures.
The daughter endures, endures, endures.
The owls hoot because they can already see,
this friction becoming an evening breeze wet with guilt,
wearing daughter, mother alike,
a bridge between a word and its consequence, a choice;
it means no worry of thirst or dust,
in this desert of night.
The daughter becomes
a white chameleon, a lesson,
a sound sealing a void;
all the ways sin dries a bone.
Red is her transgression,
like she is her mother’s.
White is not a virtue, but an accusation
that only stands, until the daughter realises
the body in her hands is bait:
a piece of the story, the moral;
in it, the mothers are all bleeding.
Salama Wainaina is a writer from Kenya. She is a co-winner of the inaugural JAY Lit Prize for Poetry in 2024, a 2025 Best of the Net nominee, and an alumnus of the Ubwali Masterclass of 2025. Her work has appeared in Ubwali Literary Magazine, Afrocritik, A Long House, Kalahari Review, The Weganda Review and elsewhere.
Eunoia Review