A poem by Tiro Sebina – featured in Reproductive Health Matters May 2012

You may not want to hear
About a woman who died
In labour in a hut

You may not want to hear
About an expectant woman
Who perished aboard
A donkey cart
On a bumpy road to an apology
Of a health post
With neither doctors on site
Nor drugs in sight

You may not want to hear
About an expectant woman’s fatal fall
Off a rickety bike
Pedalled by a drunken man
Terrified of Emang Basadi
Concerned about his name
Appearing on the birth certificate

You may not want to hear
About a woman who expired
Without knowing
She was targeted by grand visions
And millennium schemes

You may not want to know
About a woman too hapless
To grace dinner-conferences
Held in her name
At exclusive venues

Who wants to know
About the bungled chaos
Of a dead mother