Babe
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Emma Spiteri, Grade 10
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Poetry
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2014
Men ate and drank heavily one night, squawking like crows,
Laughing half-heartedly as they gathered around the fire.
While us serving girls, served until the men began to doze,
And when our strength diminished, we began to tire.
I was robbed, stricken down and beaten in the trough,
After some drunken men decided to wander the palace.
But this was my first time when my dress began to fray,
I fell victim to their hideous humour because of my status.
This was the night I went to my chambers too ashamed to slumber,
But woke to the muffled cry of an infant without his mother.
The baby was found cloaked in linen cloth near some umber, (earth)
He had been abandoned and left with no trace of a brother.
Though my baby is not my own, I do not contest,
I have not conceived or born a nestling of my own.
I have a handsome baby to clasp to my barren breast,
And the extent of my love for my baby is still unknown.