New World
In mother’s garden the hypericum freezes
and father drinks.
The word petrichor does not exist in our language.
There’s no equivalent in Ewe or Ga
though when it rains, I rub my nose
on the cement to smell
the strong petrichor
like mother rubs my hair.
Soon after the rain, no sound is heard.
No fluttering of wings.
Just a silent house in a city
and father, haunted with visions
of barely and fire.
Mother fills in the hole
that father’s fist left in the wall
and I watch little maggots
writhe on a dead bird.
Their giant fell. Mine is rising.
But we are similar. We are laborers.
I should’ve married rich, mother says
instead I married a drunk,
I will not last forever. I am not a patient woman.
In the absence of light, we starve.
Not us, but father
though time kills us just the same
giving meaning to the soothsayer’s words.
A symbolic meaning.
Granted, it’s abstract and unreal.
If your father wants me let him come
mother says.
And in this world, there exists no word
for the scent of a woman rained on
except in my head.
***
Author photograph courtesy of Brian Gyamfi
