By Dickson Mukisa

I will now be a man,
And for the very least,
Care to be one.

I will make her one anklet, just fine,
Out of the labour of my heart.
I will furnish the necklace
She says is long faded—
And with the tire of every day—
Find the appeal under her eye.

She will now adorn this,
High and bold and affirm to me,
You now are a man,
Mine and my husband.

I will then be a man,
A man I will be again,
Now that I have the privilege
Of mining tonnes of raw gold
Out of these Rupa Hills
And then be the man,
One of my father’s blessing—
And my mother’s will.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dickson Mukisa is a Ugandan poet drawn to the obliviously obvious worlds of our time—the things we see and choose not to name. His work, Tears of Nature, appeared in FEMRITE’s Your Poetry in a Lunatic Sanity (2025).