nina’s little little elegy by Ewoenam Akahoho
CW: Death and grief
my sister and I go to bed, every night, with a prayer
that the sun does not die in its sleep.
and before we allow our souls their deserved wandering, we hold hands
and weave our fingers into highlights of forever.
maybe, if luck’s tongue is tuneful enough,
tomorrow will not be a harvest of blood.
how cruel grief is, that after peeling our throats
into slices of anguished melodies
it offers us a glass of water- perhaps poisonous enough to keep us close
because its relevance is threatened
because tomorrow, the frog will have the courage to dance
because healing, has taken stupendous flight.
I have only recently learned that, there is more to life
than a seamless invasion of a needle hole.
but where do we begin? where does sweetness lay its head?
I am tired. my breath smells only of dirges and Hennessey.
look, I want to be a lie someone dies with.
where we come from, there are men who laid in coffins as cradles
and stabbed their mothers, so their screams could lull them to sleep.
the morning dew that falls in our garden
are the tears of brokenhearted birds who have no clue
how to take flight today.
Ewoenam Akahoho is a Ghanaian poet and performer. His works have been published and forthcoming in the Mamba, Journal of African Haiku Network, Tampered Press and Icefloe Press. He does research in music and also has interests in other forms of art. You can reach him on twitter @EwoenamAkahoho