Unholy Women

By Chris Abani b. 1967 Chris Abani

But of course these poems are

about men,

which we become by defining how

we are not women

and

so becoming

a shadow devouring the light to find the limits

which is what Richard Pryor would have told Joan of Arc

in a joke funnier for being sexist

“It’s a man thang.”

And of course there is God

and its problematic relationship to light

not to mention the question

of permission

Who builds the box, the shape?

It makes sense that Jesus, the new man 2,000 years ago

was a carpenter.

You need that craft, the precision of measurement

angles of angels

who incidentally are never women.

Just ask the Romans, who called them Angelo, Angelus

never Angela—

that lie was coined by a dissident nun hiding

her feminism under the cover of rapture

but

is it enough to announce yourself?

To beat your chest in contrition calling

Mea culpa! Mea culpa?

Guilt can never be enough

Mere intent—where is its purpose?

Yet there are no answers

there are only lines that disappear

into horizons that girder us with safety

just as there is no way to end this poem.

Source: Dog Woman (Red Hen Press, 2004)

Biography

Chris Abani is part of a new generation of Nigerian writers working to convey to an English-speaking audience the experience of those born and raised in that troubled African nation. Abani began writing at a very young age and published his first novel, Masters of the Board, while still a teenager. The plot of the novel, a political thriller, proved uncomfortably close to actual events; it mirrored a coup that was carried out in . . .

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