Fetching Water from a Distant Well

They came and smashed my clay pots,
the ones I have made for wedding feasts for years and years.
Vessels passed from mother to daughter,
surrounded by a glaze that shimmers in the courtyard sun.

With a large stick they came,
shattering for hours and hours the work of my hands.
Hands which caressed the clay
into roundness, fullness.

They came and ripped my legs apart,
the angry wise men of the village.
I had dared to speak out child marriage,
against our ancient tenuous thread of tradition.

And when I filed charges of rape
against these lawmakers and justice givers,
their defense lawyers asked me if my tormentors caused me pleasure
as they mounted my body on the barren hill.

When strangers steal my body, I bleed and bruise
I tell them, in places no medical examiner can possibly see.
I hurt here and here, I tell them, pointing to the swollen places,
the places they have pummeled with their rage.

I want to point to my heart
and to the eyes of my husband
who could not save me from their attack,
who was forced to witness this violation of his bride.

The elders now murmur
about the marketplace,
rest heavily on their canes.
They call me whore.

Even the children
have taken up the chant like a hypnotic nursery rhyme.
I hear them jump and skip and hop, making melody out of whore
as they play in the courtyard.

The neighbors have been warned
not to give me or my children milk
or even water from our village well.

They say I defile their water with my untouchable touch.

And today, I remain in the village with my husband
who continues to embrace me.
And today, my hands continue to coax the clay into pots
out of habit, out of rhythm, creating mounds of pottery no one will buy.

Come and see my beautiful land,
the land where these potter’s hands took shape.
Rising out of sandstorms, creating earthen vessels
that I stack on my head

Walking four miles
to ferret water from a foreign well.
My hands, at least, are content,
busy in harmony with the sand and the wind.

And I shield my eyes with a fragile veil,
as I fetch water from a distant well.