Songs of Anisha
“Fruity Flowers to Myself,”
by Biodun Idowu
Heart is in my mouth.
Part for fear, another with grief
This soil moulded me,
Its familiar grittiness embraces my feet
As I hurriedly step lightly, rapid
paces not schelping
I make quick my distance from my origin
in haste to my promise of green.
I do not kiss the soil
I do not take a stone and hide it in my palm
for remembrance.
I am a prodigal, seeking my path to a distant pledge
Not looking back,
as the warm tendrils of my mother’s earth slowly unravel
from my body and I embrace the frost of a strange mother.
I place my feet gently, gingerly on this grey earth.
There are no rich blacks and browns here to stain my feet
I kiss the earth
I take a blade of grass and chew
for acquaintance.
I am an embracer of this new thing, this new feeling
This new fear that slowly clasps its chains around me
as it claims my soul, my hands, my heart to grieve,
in shame at my dissolute ways, my headlong race to forget
the source of my identity.
I look back,
letting the stolen memories of my mother’s heat waft to me
from other women’s cooking pots
I seek the green embrace of my home in the clasp of others.
I hunt for unconditional acceptance in the eyes of every warm skin
I pass in the streets.
The cold wraps around my tender feet as my toes try to recall
the heat of that homeland soil.
The eye of my heart sheds a solitary tear, it rolls and lies quiet
at the bottom of my belly, its sting reminds me of who I once was.
Its salty trail tells me who I am now and its journey asks me
who I still wish to be.
Heart in my mouth
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