Thought You Heard Mommy on the Wind
So this day spread its arms to catch you again
& when you fell, so did your baby,
like an apple laying on the table half-eaten,
its skin bleeding a concave shadow on the brown floor.
Everything in this darkness is muted.
Your heart, displaced by memories spinning on their toes,
little girls high on caffeine.
They said babies do wiggle into pools of blood
& it is not your fault. Say it is not your fault.
Your hand closes over your rosary and stops.
Who prays to a guillotine for absolution?
Even God has found you guilty, hasn’t he?
Now the moon shines halfheartedly in the sky
& time sits in this place, a deity with his feet
stuck between the tenderness of your core.
How many ships have you lost on the way?
Oh supple softness, oh woman, oh land.
The wind brushes against you, impossible loneliness.
This you have learnt – the absence of a miracle is an empty hand facing the sky.
So what use is standing in Eden
when the only serpentine creature is you?
Your god a mirror?
Your only offering blood, the same one reflecting
on the floor; the black of your iris.
When would you stop meeting nightfall
standing behind the curtains?
Watching everything, a lifesized display
in halves.
You small, sad female, consuming yourself.
Anointing Obuh is an Emerging writer from Africa. Her works have been featured in Mineral lit mag, Rattle, Barren Magazine, greatweather for media and elsewhere. She tweets @therealanniekay
