Baby’s crying—
I can’t feel my legs.
Baby’s crying—
Six months since I bled.
Baby’s crying—
Mista’s just left the room.
Baby’s crying—
Missus comes with the broom.
“Baby’s crying!”
she screams as she swings.
Baby’s crying—
My swollen womb sting.
Baby’s crying—
I rise to my chore.
Baby’s crying
as mine drips to the floor.
© 2016 Nortina Simmons
Nortina's Writing Inspiration Well 
Girl, you are killing it and killing me! This poem is very powerful and upsetting to me.
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I’m killing myself! Powerful verse, but hard to both read and write. Today’s prompt is much lighter 🙂
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Wow such vivid imagery. She cannot even rest and take care of herself because the ‘Mrs,’ needs something and is beating her with a broom. Such savagery, can’t the missus see to her own child a moment while the girl rests and gives birth. This poem makes me so angry that people can’t see each other as equals. There was a children’s song we sang at Sunday school when we were little. A line went: “Red, and yellow, black, and white. They are precious in his site. Jesus loves the little children of the world.”
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We used to sing that song in Sunday school. It’s such an important song. Despite the actions of people who claim to love Him, God does not discriminate. Everyone is created equal, no matter their race, sex, age, etc. I think it’s also ironic that Africans were views as less that human yet many white children were raised by black mammies. Which proves that slave owners knew they were human and deserved equal rights. I mean, you wouldn’t let a goat breast feed your baby, right?
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Exactly!
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This is very powerful and sad.
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I actually got the inspiration from a story–I think it was in Frederick Douglass’ “Narrative”—of a mistress who beat her young female slave to death because she didn’t wake up to tend to the baby’s cries. Very sad.
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That is very sad. I hope it was fiction.
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Well his narrative is non-fiction. The part about the mistress and the baby was probably hearsay, I don’t remember the exact details of it, but who knows, it could have very well happen.
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