“I will never understand your absence
even if it speaks with my mother’s voice…”
THERE IS A METAPHOR FOR EVERYTHING
it is raining here in my mother tongue
I have no clue what that means
but I do know poets are obsessed
with the metaphor of sound of language
of familiarity: you get too close to a word
& it attacks you…
it is raining here, & I am alone
in my chair thinking
of your mouth the metaphor of warmth
neck muscles nostalgic spasm
the last gift you gave me was a hickey
faded now into a scab
for the pecking of crows
this loneliness
is rougher than a saw’s
edge.
I will never understand your absence
even if it speaks with my mother’s voice
how to loosen your grip on my soul
without weakening fissures, how to scrub you
off my breath without hiccup I seek
the bliss of suffusion, as in please
kiss me in the rain one more time
before you disappear
I want to laugh whenever you say I love you
over the phone
all poets know the metaphor of loss
how the earth, happy to receive rain
is oblivious to the piecemeal erosion
of its face
———————-
HOMEOSTASIS
that one time, at Dominos
we spread laughter atop pizza
because it tasted like dry bread, flavourless &
we sat, monitoring cameras monitoring
us. you wanted a kiss. but in
Nigeria, a woman could be arrested
for being too happy for owning her body
so
I fed you pizza slices instead. safety
first. but your desire
could take no fetters.
you—unhinged sound, ballooning in
my thorax—went straight for my right thigh
& tapped twice with your fingers
awakening me.
———————-
THE CRAFT OF LONELINESS
how perpendicular I am to
pestilence
munching always the hem
of despair with shaky teeth I
know sadness like lungs know air sadness
so thick it froths in the ears everything
I love is dying—my body parallel
to healing—all my years spent
staring at joy the way roots gaze
at the soil after being exhumed
from the earth
———————-
Poems © Pamilerin Jacob
Image by Daria Nepriakhina from Pixabay