driftwood: to my mother's daughter far away from home
by Martins Deep
for Okhiemute
when death puffed papa —
trapped in a ring of smoke,
he left us a body we could
identify in its ashtray, at st. gerard’s morgue.
after interment, mama in saltwater showers
became a lad’s watercolor portrait washing,
washing, w ash i n g away
into lifeless eyes; a laughter that heralds harmattan;
her mouth: a cavity echoing an elegy of crows.
and the colors you could have spared,
you reserved to dye coats for thankless shadows.
on evenings ever since,
sighs carved her bed into a frost-coated bier.
papa’s ghost would sneak through the fissure on the wall
to offer her a body soaked in sunrise.
[and quickly, that fissure is widening; a suction
gathering pressure to draw her into a safe passage]
in a tempest, the only thing that
never suffers wreckage is driftwood
so, you shapeshift, dancing to the rhythms of tide,
because the evil eye of the sea
haunts everything found with a chart.
you float, d r i f t w o o d
knowing only to dance with flotsam.
a whale gapes ahead,
yet you float,
smuggled by waves that bring
the bodies of dead fishermen home.
among the ghosts disputing over my body
by Martins Deep
moulting the score
of tegan & sara’s ‘dark come soon‘
which has become my epidermis,
i bleed.
bleeding tonight, i find a rag
on ma’s lap to wipe my hands with.
she’s grinding kolanut into a paste of blood moon,
as the head of a man in the cave of her mouth
— the man who c r u s h e d
her daughter’s tender grapes
against the walls on black street,
for a mural of grief.
you held it up to me
when first light cleared my bloodshot eyes.
there was the stain of my hands
blended into the man’s, into yours.
it was your white smock
sewn you the eve of easter sunday.
this is your earliest memory
of acrylic on canvas.
About the Author
Martins Deep (he/him) is a Nigerian poet, artist, & and currently a student of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. His works deeply explore the African experience. His creative works have appeared, or are forthcoming on FIYAH, The Roadrunner Review, Covert Literary Magazine, Barren Magazine, The Hellebore, Chestnut Review, Mineral Lit Mag, Agbowó Magazine, Suburban Review, IceFloe Press, FERAL, Libretto Magazine, The Shallow Tales Review, Kalahari Review, & elsewhere. He loves jazz, adores Bethel Music and fantasizes reincarnating as an owl. He tweets @martinsdeep1