Silver Bracelet

By KateLynn Hibbard

It was one of those first good days of spring, warm, steady sun, feathered clouds floating on a fine wet breeze. I had wandered into a pretty little shop full of fripperies: artisan chocolates, hand laid papers, trays full of bangles splayed on the counter like ransom. I picked up several and held them to the light, weighing the heft, imagining the clanking pleasure the beveled one would bring me when I heard the story on the radio: two hundred girls from the Chibok school, kidnapped by Boko Haram, and my mind went blank –. Of course they would be raped, of course they would be forced to bear children. Did they even speak the same language? Were they girls who wore silver bracelets on their slim brown wrists, tucked beneath their burkas? I felt helpless, meaningless, complicit, and I bought the damn bracelet anyway.

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KateLynn Hibbard’s books are Sleeping Upside Down, Sweet Weight, and Simples, winner of the 2018 Howling Bird Press Poetry Prize. Some journals where her poems have appeared include Barrow Street, Ars Medica, Nimrod, and Prairie Schooner. Editor of When We Become Weavers: Queer Female Poets on the Midwest Experience, she teaches at Minneapolis College, sings with One Voice Mixed Chorus, and lives with many pets and her spouse Jan in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Please visit katelynnhibbard.com for more information.