Salt Pillar or A Boy in Memory Verse
After Charity, my late cousin.
(Un)fortunately,
I was never taught the ploy
to many things I know now,
so when I cover my feet
with the sand from my
father’s verandah, I wished
I could build a poem that does
not mourn inside strange handshakes
exchanged behind a funeral jotter.
I wished my cousin could inhale the
tranquil of her bed & dream not
holding blood sucking mosquitoes.
I wished my aunt could kneel
& god doesn’t mistake her portrait
for a salt pillar or un-alive her before
the sun touches the compound’s rooftop.
I w – i – s – h – e – d – I wished
memories won’t lead me anymore
to the pool of grief. I mean that,
all things I dear are in brittle shards,
even my mother’s hut cries each time
a new flower germinates close to
the yard. Yesterday, we crayoned our feet
atop my cousin’s grave & we whiffed
a corpse in her: unalive and immovable
like a stone-block. But she doesn’t slip
out of my tongue, and so is her death still
revolting in my chest. what more is love
Anderson Moses is an emerging poet from Nigeria, His works have been published or forthcoming in various literary magazines. On X he’s @AndersonMoses18.
The Marbled Sigh 