Debt of Honor

Karonga, that black gentleman,

Lent me a wife to meet my need,

(Fever, not love, was my complaint-

A lion's wound, infected.)

She was not young-some twenty odd-but kind.

For six long months she squatted by my bed,

Washed, tended, fed me, emptied slops,

Tied on her charms, made medicine,

Held water to my thirst

In a sour calabash.

Then, when I was up again,

A gaunt unshaven bag of bones,

Sunning my pale flesh on the village street,

She put aside the goods I offered,

She showed a stick with many notches.

"These the days I nursed you-many, many-

Like a good wife; now for as many days

Stay with me as my husband.

Long the time since the chief touched me-

He is with his girls;

I ask to be again a wife."

I stayed.

When the last day was over,

I took my spear away from the hut's door,

Showing that I was done.

She said, "Quaheri" quietly.

Karonga asked, " What of the child to come?

Shall I then keep it for you?"

A courteous thought-the custom is to kill

At birth the children of loaned wives.

"You want the child?" I asked the woman.

She replied, "And do you come again?"

"No more." She said,

"The stone sinks in the pool-

Let its last ripple die."