The Baby in the Priest’s Room

In a small crib in a priest’s home

is a baby who looks like Anne’s baby

girl, peaceful and sleeping while I’m

in the kitchen cleaning for hours.

When she stirs, I pick her up and hold

her until she falls asleep again. I put

her back into her cot in a room adjacent

the kitchen. Seven priests reside here,

and I wonder how a baby happens

to live with them. I’d like to finish

up and go to my family, but each time

I try to leave, there’s something else

to tackle—cobwebs to wipe off

the walls, vacuum every corner, dust

the furniture…When at last I’m done

and putting the darling to sleep one more

time, she’s grown so heavy I can’t lift her.

I sort of drag her to a larger bed across

the room, and I’m thankful she keeps

smiling. Another baby could have cried.

Mildred Kiconco Barya is a North Carolina-based writer and poet of East African descent. She teaches and lectures globally, and is the author of four full-length poetry collections, most recently The Animals of My Earth School published by Terrapin Books, 2023. Her prose, hybrids, and poems have appeared in New England Review, Shenandoah, Joyland, The Cincinnati Review, Tin House, Forge, and elsewhere. She’s now working on a collection of creative nonfiction, and her essay, “Being Here in This Body”, won the 2020 Linda Flowers Literary Award and is published in the North Carolina Literary Review. She serves on the boards of African Writers Trust, Story Parlor, and coordinates the Poetrio Reading events at Malaprop’s Independent Bookstore/Café. She blogs here: www.mildredbarya.com

NEXT >