Patience, Comrade, Patience
She arrives where night is deepest, a red moon pinned to her gele like a secret. Traders swear she steps from the water with perfume and coins, offering wealth for a vow, beauty for obedience. Some follow her music and never return; others come back changed—eyes bright as fish-scale and pockets that never empty, so long as they keep her shrine clean and her name unbroken. In the hush between drumbeats, she is the one watching from the dark, the river’s mirror and its rumor.
