It can disguise itself as power, or property, and there is nothing more serious when you are a girl who has neither.
Of course a pound coin can be serious too. When it feels warm and secure it will turn around and smile at you, the way my big sister Nkiruka used to smile at the men in our village in the short summer after she was a girl but before she was really a woman, and certainly before the evening my mother took her to a quiet place for a serious talk. It can cross deserts and oceans and leave the sound of gunfire and the bitter smell of burning thatch behind. We would be happy, like lovers who met on holiday and forgot each other’s names.Ī pound coin can go wherever it thinks it will be safest. Maybe I would visit with you for the weekend and then suddenly, because I am fickle like that, I would visit with the man from the corner shop instead – but you would not be sad because you would be eating a cinnamon bun, or drinking a cold Coca Cola from the can, and you would never think of me again. Everyone would be pleased to see me coming.
Most days I wish I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl.
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