The Woman Who Wants to be My Wife by Femi Fatoba

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Were I not a man as men are,

Why ask for gourds of breasts

In the laps of harvest:

The woman

Who wants to be my wife

Inherited her father’s chest:

She says:

Who has ever heard of any man

Feeding his children with the sugarcane

Or wrinkled lemons in his loins:

Let the pawpaw

Wear her husband’s manhood

Like beads, for birds

To peck and children to pluck.

Since bigness is the yam’s only beauty

Shall we then lie in hope that

The farmer shall taste of sweet potatoes

Without kneeling to greet the Earth:

The woman Who wants to be my wife

Inherited Ifa’s tongue;

We shall sleep on

A chest of riddles and proverbs.