Glory to Him

By Rakev Gemechu

We sit in a circle, arms folded tight,
feet beating the earth like it owes us something.
The sun isn’t gentle; it burns our soles darker,
carves white lines across skin like old scars.

My feet, still smooth, hide under my dress,
streaked with morning mud, tucked away like secrets.

Others don’t hide theirs. Toenails gone, flesh raw,
they joke about what’s left, say thanks, they still walk.
“Glory to him,” they say.

Mother lost two from the same foot.
She once said it’d look better if they came from both.
As if symmetry could clean up blood,
as if pain split evenly was somehow less.

Where her nails should be, red blooms.
When I saw it, I screamed.
Not from shock, but because I knew:
blood that shade doesn’t belong to the living.

I asked her.
"Fungus," she said,
and wouldn’t meet my eyes.
She looked at my father.

He sat across from us.
Feet hidden under his white turban,
too still.
Too clean.
Like mine.

Rakev Gemechu is an emerging writer based in Ethiopia whose works explore themes of womanhood, relationships, and religion. She serves as the editor of Polyphony Literature and her school’s newsletter.