Enotor Prosper

In This Poem, I Follow The Shallow Hoof Prints Of A
Stallion To A Garden Where Birds Unfurl Their Wings Into A
Ceremony Of Requiem

"I owe every wall a shadow" Nome Emeka Patrick

Everyone thinks home is safe until it isn't. Yesterday, a syllable____
the thick of a fist____ erupts off of father. & mother guards her
heart too late. This is her body: all skin and bones, no soul.

Say body____ Say survive. Hush now, listen in. You could hear
doors closing in the far sides of her voice. This is her mouth, our
only exeunt. I caress the lines on her face; for the space

between "it's okay" and tears is thin. I know a kid's thumb on the
cheek of a goddess can never be dimple. Still, I caress. In this
poem, I kowtow & drink water from a skull in Golgotha, each

droplet a taste of Elysium and the life after that. Shouldn't I hope?
I have been in this body for the last 20 years, my Mother's uterus
before that, God's held-out palms before that and the

Chimera long before that. There is always enough demon crowding
the night, enough dead to keep the eyes raining. Still we wake,
hybridize____ Look how far we've come. (Not dead,

no.) Last night, a pantheon of ex-gods gather in a storm and
chuckle. Small gods with small sense of humour. It's morning and
mother's body is a bouquet of roses sandwiched between

land and sun. One after the other: each petal dehydrates, spills its
fragrance. & this is how she give flavour to the air in our house.
Breathe my children____ Breathe.