Shapes of no more
Victor Uwaifo said:
you buy shirt shirt tears
if God creates soul soul will go back to its owner
the body that we use minimally would turn sands so
i could not tell you to stay
& if i break cascades down
goodbye, goodbye
handful of body-sands thrown
to the teeth of a starving abyss
i won’t cry for I know
i could not hold back your slipping away
not that this washes away any pain
so many things i want to say to you
just yesterday, Papa & i writing the biography of you
you again felt the weight of those three tubers of yam on your head
as you put the soles of your feet on the footprints of your father
trekking miles away to the object of desire
again you in your childhood backyard when the darkness of noon
came with a 1947 half-pounded yam inside your mortar
dead cold in the face of your living pestle
& you mourn the waiting stomach of your father
papa said I should cut you out where you broke boys, too much of fierce.
he wants you a saint, he says write a cheerful giver
in the end this left you paralyse on one side,
thought you should know.
soon after you passed we carried you through the sitting room
children & grandchildren measuring
memories in rice cups began to realize the shapes of no-mores
we carried the body you left behind
as if it’s flotsam washed up on the secure shore of our delusion
i held some of your weight in my hands
as we carried you into the ambulance’s heart
i wondered how you could not be there
flesh & bones couldn’t be all of such heavy
does one lose the tray one uses to sell little sweet things
in the market?
Contributor’s Bio
Osagiede Best is an emerging poet, essayist, and storyteller. He was born in the ancient city of Benin in Edo State, Nigeria. He reads philosophical and psychological literature in his free time; they greatly influence his writing. They help open him up to the workings of his mind. He loves history, photography, physics, nature, and biology. His recently published work can be found in Nnoko stories and in African Writer Mag.
