her coffin is broke open when we visit the tomb, the miracle is sudden like an
impromptu rain in a land of famine. my mother's face is the harp i palm; every
song spilling from it embodies a strange language-- the kind my tongue never tenders before, sweet & soulful.
which means death suffers a lethal blow in this combat. which means my mother is inside
the kitchen this sunny noon, the aroma of her melon soup stings the air & i nearly die of delicious suffocation.
i feel her warm blood sprinting through the track field of her veins when our skins collide.
which means my mother morphs into a phoenix, there's no fire to smoke her into ashes.
let me dance myself into this illusion where i graffiti my mother as a skilled swimmer backstroking into
the world she once left with a silence worn around her neck like a cursed locket.
conclusion: i am unready to make a home for this grievance.
Eniola Abdulroqeeb Arówólò (he/him/his) is a Nigerian emerging writer, Frontier V and an undergrad of Mass Communication. He is passionate about inequality, politics, domestic violence, and child rights. His works have appeared or forthcoming on Brittle Paper, Rough Cut Press, Poetry Column ND, Rigorous Magazine, Afreecan Read, Ice Floe Press, Rise Up Review, Inverse Journal, Lunaris Review, In Parentheses Art, Rulerless Magazine, and elsewhere. He is the August winner of PIN-10 DAY POETRY and has been shortlisted in BPPC June/July Anthology. In his leisure time, he is either writing, reading or binge-watching cartoons. Twitter Handle: @eniola_abdulroq