GODHEAD

When Mother walks
her hands plant themselves
grudgingly on her waist,
a smile adorning her face
while her eyes tell tales
of sorrow.

When Mother talks,
her lips engage in a timeless dance of passion
coming and moving apart in a want for need.
Her words become peacocks
but her voice the colour of weeping clouds,
birth the unseen tears
beating her heart in torrents of regret.

When Mother sits,
she journeys a thousand miles
getting lost in herself,
her frequent bouts of fatigue a testament
to her travels.
Mother Nature’s offer of suffering
is a welcome distraction to the shame
she is clad in,
the probe of life’s thorns veiled
by a thin garment of compassion
beneath which ridicule gurgles.

When Mother stands,
her partly undone wrapper
moulds words the shape of crow’s feet.
Blood trickles down her face
like it does
each time it crawls out of the wounds
scarring the face of a dying Jesus.

Mother dies every time she tries to live.

I try piecing together shards of
her broken heart
but they become one with me,
my blood the colour of my skin
and my skin the colour of blood.
Her wounds are my wounds,
my hurt becomes hers.
Fate is a basket:
in it are tools of time.

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Poetry © Abalanne Ugochukwu
Image: Ricardo Lago via Flickr (modified)