“Grief will probably/ redraft your whole/ anatomy”
—Caroline Ebeid
I have just begun my walk out of dawn
& I have begun picking dead leaves.
I have never played so close to fire, but
hear, I know the language of been burnt.
my mother taught me, the taste of a live-coal
on a boy’s tongue, when she walked out of her body,
left it a snail shell. today, I forget the language of joy,
I forget how happiness grows into a sugary bird
filling every puff of cheek, nestling under the pave
of the tongue, hiding in the spaces between the teeth
where god decided to let air in in seeps. it is the doing
of grief. how it will gift you a new tongue, or scrape clean
the one you knew; bland every bud that knows
sweetness; fill your mouth with a new song,
the way a Mother python fills a room-corner.
tell me, what is grief itself if not the remaking of a life?
*This poem first appeared on Kreative Diadem, after being named the 1st runner-up in the Kreative Diadem Writing Contest (Poetry Category) 2019. According to Kechi Nomu, the judge:
"Ogunyemi's poem is unexpected and tender and not afraid to get lost in itself. Without devaluing his subject matter, he offers readers many lighthearted moments. The language of this poem is beautiful and surprising always."