Motherhood
Maybe Now, Maybe Never
Three years after my divorce, on the very eve of my divorce anniversary, my sister Oge texted. At first, it was a call. I was in the kitchen staring at the fine china my last mother-in-law gave me on my wedding day. It was my ex-husband’s favorite—a set of sixteen plates and bowls and saucers […]
Born to Die
They will ask me when I know, I’ll sigh and say not so long ago. It happened in fragments—piece by piece you came and filled up the empty space—and in a matter of time, you became my world. They will be surprised when I say you are the only man I have ever truly loved. […]
I am not your mother, oh country
but I’ll wash you clean. Bring me the bath water and soap, I’ll have to wash you off my skin off my tongue off my marrows, till you transform into a scum-flow I’ll trap in a bath bowl, un-forgetting to spill the water and the baby into a memory […]