“Not an Ogbanje” – Poetry

Knife scars
Serrated her back and front
Like the beak of a swordfish
Her ears were notched
Her iyi uwa was destroyed
No hope of returning to the indoors

A baby is born
Fresh as dawn
No scars, no notched ears
Alas,
It was still
As a statue

But there were no signs of Ogbanje-lity
If not Ogbanje, why,
Like the waves of the ocean does she come and go?
Words like stones, people threw at the mother.

‘You’re the witch
A Mamiwota
You’re married to a spirit husband’
The mother wailed
Washed with humiliation

After series of tests,
She found out
her gone children were not Ogbanje
neither were they witches

It was just a medical case
Of Rhesus incompatibility