The final hours of the Sunday market
Chellama thought of how she'd spend the night-
Lonely, in her mother's company
Eating the fruit of her labour

Hearing a babyvoice call her name
She looked up and found-
With fire in his hair, a little man:
A sungod of a dwarf
Her toyman;
She felt the boars of fire
Bang on her inside
He asked for her hand

They rolled like dice
In the hay; only the dogs were near
(The urchins lifted cassava roots from her stall)

She found the dwarf had lost his fire
He turned cold and-
He was dead
Chellama pulled herself up and scampered to her stall and-
There, cooling herself down, thought of how she'd spend the night
Lonely, in her mother's company