Her name isn’t Asifa
Though it could be. She could be eight years old, too.
She likes to fuss over her own hair, the rose placed just so. Not the rough, any ol’ way She does.
She might be ten. That rose makes her feel pretty.
Until the pretty of the pink gains weight as the head is bowed between another’s to take
him
a breath
them
To be parted like that is to
be scalped
By the highest bidder
Who likes them young enough to bend but not break
The spirit…
Of that little girl. She waits.
Asifa, Layla, Paula, Patrice, Denitra, the young might-be-a-little-Frida.
They could be. They Were.
They are no longer.
Sold to the highest bidder.
Sold out to the gravest sin.
For a bottom dollar,
no longer.
But still a vision with a pink rose in her hair.
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