Songs of Anisha
“Sabbath Day,”
by Gaamangwe Joy Mogami
Your aunt with a smoldering mouth gaping without a tongue,
Spent Sabbath day laughing and laughing.
This was after your mother told her how
Her son tore apart the yellow sun,
Trying to swallow whole a dusk full of owls,
Dandelion and shadows.
He is a pyre now,
And she is sorry because someone is yet to remember how to
Hide the deep-sea in human bones.
Your aunt with hurricane eyes wide without irises,
Spent Sabbath day separating silence
From her sons’ paraffin-smelling bones.
And you are holding your lungs in your thighs.
You have remembered that you knew,
How your cousin started stealing midnight after
Ghouls started speaking to him in broad day light.
He is a hymn now,
And you are sorry because someone is yet to remember how to
Unbury ghosts with still beating hearts.
“Deathpipe,”
by Perpetual Emenekwum-Eziefule
Held between finger tips
You are brought to heights
By sharers of passion
Of twisted delights
Incandescent as you thrill.
I see you now
Aglow, flaming
Twining round hearts of men
Seeking you for comfort
Finding you in death
Their names written in ashes of time.
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