During our daily two-hour Skype conversations
I ask you about those hand pricked tattoos that adorned your face and your limbs
you said: the badiuon women couldn’t afford luxuries like nice garments or jewellery
so when it came time to wed they hummed hymns and decorated their skin with sharp pins and hand-picked tattoos in the shape of roses and necklaces’ to show off their bodies to their husband on their wedding night they called it
the poor people’s jewellery
Grandmother
truth is,
I never met my grandfather
but whenever you speak of him your eyes widen like football fields
your withered cheeks blush rosy red
your smile
fills the room like forgotten curtains on a summer morning-
you tell stories of him
as your lips break free
from the shackles of repressed memories
and your wall
collapses
relapses
elapses
synapses
snapping , connections too quick for your thoughts to catch up to you
I catch you
daydreaming
you place your open palm on my right cheek
and bring me closer to you
as your chin cuddles my forehead
as the salty reminisce of your tear drops
travel that oh-so-familiar
downward stream
Grandmother
I know cemeteries that have more life
than what we’ve shared
with every riff and every breath
may God bless those scars that tore your chest
when those hospital lights claimed your breasts
and those beauty spotted sores upon your skin
camouflaged as pores
to let hope in
a country where suicide is a season in spring time
when your nights are spent sleepless
and your days are plagued with pretentious advice
like ‘time heals all wounds’
Well I’mma give time, time
and draw clocks on these cuts
as band aids
and pain both hands at ‘12’
so my prayers can be on time for a change
Grandmother
you give me the language to speak my identity for the first time
as I have a list of questions I want to ask you like,
Did you really walk them to school three-miles every day and back?
and
how did you feed nine- kids with three loafs of bread every day?
In fact
Every blink- a love note to capture your own history
Grandmother
how did you cope when your sons
were treated like unmarked- cargo, nameless
as they latched on to steel rods of sails
pressed against their flesh
tore through obese oceans
made do with fragile boats
that resembled broken bones of those that couldn’t make it
held together by a prayer
Grandmother
I know your face still
do you know mine?
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