By Dr. J. Kerkula Foeday
My Weekly Poetic Reflection, Issue 16, Tuesday, July 14, 2026
The tragedy of the poor is not merely that they are exploited, but that they are too often persuaded to applaud their own exploitation.
She wakes before the rooster calls the dawn,
Ties her lappa tight and presses on,
Balances her tray on a weary head,
Sells her peppers, cassava, and bread.
Her feet know every stone on the market lane,
Her back bows low beneath the sun and rain,
She counts her coins by the dying light …
Not enough for morning, not enough for night.
But come election season, watch her run,
She leaves her tray beneath the scorching sun,
She ties her head in their party’s color,
And dances for the man who keeps her poorer.
She chants his name like a prayer at church,
She campaigns hardest with the deepest hurt,
She gives her legs, her voice, her only day …
To the hand that takes her bread away.
They come to her with a bag of rice,
One bag of rice … and they buy her twice,
She lifts the flag and shouts his name so loud,
A loyal soldier in a hungry crowd.
But ask her why the schools have no chairs,
Why the hospital walls are crying in disrepair,
Why her children walk three miles in the heat —
She’ll say, “God’s time” and shuffle her feet.
She does not know that her tired hands
Built the mansion on the hills where her oppressor stands,
She does not see that the very man she hails
Wrote the law that tips the market scales.
Karl Marx called it ‘false consciousness’ … the fog,
The veil that blinds the worker like a log
Trapped in a river, floating with the tide,
Not knowing it is drowning from inside.
Liberia, her name is in your every street,
She is the mother, the seller, the heartbeat,
She is the nation’s back, the nation’s floor;
And still she votes to keep herself poor.
Wake up, market woman, lift your eyes,
The rice they gave you was a bag of lies,
The color on your head is not your flag;
It is the blindfold in the master’s bag.
Your pepper feeds the city, your sweat built this place,
You are not the bottom … you are the base,
Until you see the hand that holds you down,
You’ll keep on dancing in their victory gown.
The road to freedom starts when you ask why …
Why your children hunger beneath a golden sky,
Why the man you carried to the Capitol gate
Cannot find you medicine before it’s too late.
She wakes before the rooster calls the dawn…
But one day she will wake
And the fog will be gone.
She’ll set down her tray, and she’ll finally see:
The market was rigged,
But the market is she.