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How I Think Up My Dead Mother

by 
Michael Akuchie 


she should be bigger than the framed photograph holding her
she shoukd touch me by mouthing the name with which she blessed my umbilical cord
until age 9, i always walked past the portrait nailed to the wall
turned my eyes away from the strange woman built into the parlour
until my brother's mouth started to foam with revelation
truth laced with shock installed nightmares inside this body 
i merge eyes with the only surviving ornament, break into a flood 
dust plaits my mother's face neatly as i ignore the resemblance
i climb up a stool & set her down for clearer examination
i introduce her face to my chest, draw her close enough
after school, i come home to intimate details of my day with her
i do not think my words are licked clean by empty air
i believe she hovers around my life fending off ghosts
that she is God which picks my prayers & washes me anew
that she soothes me with pretty stories till sleep takes control
that i do not have trouble bringing her inside my dreams
that she calls me son , & in so doing sets fire to the rain in my eyes
i am a boy who pools his life inside the wish pond & retrieves his mother
because i want to feel her breath's warmth pressed against my neck
because i want her scolding to tighten up childlike screwups
i rise to the rank of a ladder & replace her body on the wall
nailed once more as inglorious personal saviour to go unnoticed
this sour moment empowers a floor of tears to overrun my eyes
& i spill over the carpet sweeping emotion across the room
mother's absence visits in the grief of dreary weathers
i make the hurt fitting by choosing to unbreak my life
the bandage of this thought will heal the wound, prominent like my name
​​

​

​Michael Akuchie is an emerging poet from Nigeria. His work has appeared on 8poems, Kissing Dynamite, TERSE, Nitrogen House, Burning House and elsewhere. He is on Twitter as @Michael_Akuchie. He studies English at the University of Benin, Nigeria.
Photo used under Creative Commons from wuestenigel