Robber’s confession

It was the empty cupboard
at home
that made me do it –
I could not help it
when I looked at my mama’s dry face
and cracked lips –
like a parched field –
her withered hands
tortured my vision.

I would not allow my sister
to peddle her greasy hole
to put food on the table
to humiliate my manhood
(my family’s pride)
the blood I bled.

Though I will never again
I am telling you:
the tattered rags that we wore
the fragile voice
of my mother’s cry at prayer times
the moonless nights
of our home with no candle
made me do it.

Even my friends say
no one sane would have done that:
Forgetting that, an empty stomach
is insensitive and wild.