“Villages”
/The Xaverian Weekly gets second rights to publish from The Antigonish Review Poet Grow-Op
Some parents will tell you
it takes a village to raise a child.
To teach her how to say please
and thank you
how to apologize when
she’s done something wrong
and mean it
how to apologize when she hasn’t
and sound like she means it.
They’ll tell you it takes a village
to teach her how to add.
One plus one is two,
two plus two is four,
Girl plus life is beautiful,
and don’t you ever forget that.
They’ll tell you it takes a village
to teach her to subtract —
the bad from a good day,
herself from a bad day,
the lies from the things
they will try and tell her.
It takes a village to raise a child
they say.
To teach her that good things
come in threes,
but not to believe in superstitions
and that her thoughts
are only worth a penny
if she doesn’t market them for more.
To teach her that the sky is blue,
except sometimes it’s not —
and maybe not knowing is okay
but she’ll ask anyway,
because it takes a village
to raise a child who asks questions,
just like it takes a village
to raise a child who won’t.
But sometimes,
a village will fall apart —
rooftops turning to dust
as walls fall down around her
and so sometimes
she’ll have to build her own.
She’ll build lopsided skyscrapers
with no stairs
out of the lego bricks she’s saved,
then fill them with women
who bend themselves into ladders
to help each other up.
Or, she’ll build long, low houses
with no roofs
so that she can imagine she’s flying
when she lies down to sleep each night.
She will collect people
like postage stamps
and fill her lego houses
with the ones that stick.
The red house on the corner
will be for the first boy
to ever take her out for coffee.
Next door, her first best friend,
and in her village you will find teachers —
the good ones
who taught her how to love herself
and how to make 5’2” look tall —
but also those who told her not to speak,
that her voice wasn’t worthy —
because it was through rebellion
that she learned to shout.
Some parents will tell you
it takes a village to raise a child,
but sometimes
the village you’re given
isn’t the one that you need.
