Poetry

Every couple of years, my mother, restless in retirement instructs me to sort through my belongings, allegedly so I may…

I wake on the ward, afloat on ketamine, fentanyl, see sky-blue morphine swifts roost nearby in pleated paper thimbles,  …

ma rubs asafoetida and ginger oil on Dida’s mushroom belly   her voice a needle on the record of an…

For Dr S Waite   A glass door separates us. My teacher stands on the other side of my apartment,…

When my father says that I’m almost as handsome as him outside in midday heat with mirthful eyes and a…

Written in response to the Tonga volcano eruption and reaction from the Vanuatu volcanoes

the body that I love lives somewhere between the 3rd and 4th surgeries. before venom coarsed its veins, pursuing survival once…

Do you see them? The fifth gate of grief is…‘ancestral grief’                  …

Imbambazi Stashed in our wet residual memory, Mother walks with fast legs, Like mother hen on sighting an eagle up…

Rumah ibu   No home without the heart of the woman, the quivering keepsake of meat. Bury it beneath  …

We run free (For Ahmaud)   We run free inside ourselves Where the tread is sure and terrain is familiar In…

We didn’t know that’s what they were doing   When they first took our words  From the toddlers’ mouths,   Replacing babbles…

Listen. Become as quiet as the space between your ribs, so you can learn why trees wear their hair underground.…

They say to come again when I speak their language, When I can properly pronounce my vowels without overshadowing my…

Slight tugs become tight hugs buried bruises because she refuses He’s not like that Small twist no fists concealed with…