A N O I N T I N G O B U H
2 poems
LOSS THROUGH A SECOND PERSON POINT OF VIEW
You prayed that the next room you entered would be safe,
said amen and shifted doors till there was a way for you.
The moon was there to watch you abandon mobility.
The rug would have told stories
if you hadn't silenced it with your foot.
You couldn't tell if the trickle
was blood or water. You couldn't tell.
The clock struck; a Bellatrix shoving her hand inside
the space between worlds.
The walls were listening again, turning every grunt into
a desire for vengeance.
Your face bore witness to why the world began in water.
Your legs were ripped apart, vessels heading towards the tip of a cliff.
There was a heady wonder in the air.
You called it disbelief and it didn't matter
You called it foolishness but it still didn't matter. The clock chimed in . . .
?
Do you know, No is the most silent word?
When a scream is channelled through the chest,
the body becomes a wasteland so silent
you can hear the sand murmuring.
Some things just break because the world has a taste
for destruction.
Imagine the thrill in seeing
a thing once whole lie broken on the floor.
Hush. The truth is: come evening,
the water will trespass upon the sands
and not all of us will be saved.
I KNOW THE COLOR OF MY PAIN
It is Thursday morning and we are fighting for all of us
Deborahs, Delilahs, cursed tempters of Adam.
We are crying the tears our parents wept into their dreams.
We are our parents' dreams.
I wear my mother's wishes like a sponge,
and all the rage passes through.
Everyone who has tried to knife me
has found me open and soft.
I wake up everyday to write my pain
into a poem holier than
the wandering hands of a priest.
I think of the seed sad at being taken away from the sower
& parables, all that wisdom of the world for nothing.
Everywhere, it hurts to be a woman
For the planting season was over before we came
Now all we do is reap the harvest.
R-A-P-E as four silent letters in the mouth of a small girl
Is loudest in the grave.
& all these fields? They are burnt, charred and black
All the ripe fruits die screaming.
To birth a daughter is to birth a lamb who waits for answers
in front of closed doors
It is to hear the echo of our own small hand knocking,
knocking.
Anointing Obuh is a Tech sis whose poetry and artworks have been published at The Lumiere Review, Rattle, Barren Magazine, Blue Marble Review, Mineral Lit Mag, and elsewhere. She tweets @therealanniekay