Pruning (They Call it FGM), by Marvel Chukwudi Pephel

Papa looks at his girl and says:
“You are a girl, you are delicate,
You are a flower and must be taken care of.”
So he sanctions her pruning:
Cut! Cut!! Cut!!!
Organic fluid drips in painful drops,
The joy of a backward-looking tradition.
On the floor she lays, counting stars at noon.
And then, at sunset,
The flower feels the sun retiring underneath her.
And the flower is abandoned;
Abandoned to take care of herself.

 

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Marvel Chukwudi Pephel is a prolific Nigerian writer who writes poems, short stories and other things besides. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in Best New African Poets 2016 Anthology, Jellyfish Whispers, High Coupe, Praxis Magazine for Arts and Literature, The Avocet, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Pyrokinection, The Kalahari Review, African Writer, The Naked Convos, PIN Quarterly Journal, Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine, amongst others. He was shortlisted for the 2016 Quality Poets Competition. He is currently a two-time winner of the Creative Writing Ink Competition (Ireland).