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How to be a Man
You begin with a matchstick,
wearing fire like hair.
Plant the flaming stick in a stove
sardined with kerosene-clothed charcoals.
Pot of water, give it minutes
to become liquid -nger.
A bowl of Semolina;
fill the pot, as one fills
a pothole with gravel.
With a pestle,
round and round you turn,
like the women before you did,
till it becomes solid
and smooth as flesh. Get a plate,
okan la won,
and you are on your way.