The only way to defeat departure is to say goodbye & stay.
Say see you soon but sit still. There’ll be no apparitions in
my room, no interruptions for thoughts shaped sharp like
the tip of your nose, no break from nintendo games and coffee
so dark I scream for cream, no Pavarotti singing in praise
of Italian pastas and cheese. I forgot to ask if he ever owned a pet
that sang as well. What do two men playing sax on a nearby hill
(not) have in common? One is bald & plays staccatos. The other is
full-haired & plays legato notes. How does a song cling to the body
of its players? Does exhaling melodies count as a plus for climate change?
Harmonies may ordain human bodies. Harmonies don’t end after a goodbye
& a handshake, after lips disengage from mouthpieces like an amen to a prayer.
Fighting absences with resonance is an unwritten law of sound. And I, too, will
resonate to my body in your absence.
Echezonachukwu Nduka (b. 1989), Nigerian poet, classical pianist, and musicologist, is the author of Chrysanthemums for Wide-eyed Ghosts (Griots Lounge, 2018). Recipient of the 2016 Korea-Nigeria Poetry Feast Prize, his works have appeared in Transition, Maple Tree Literary Supplement, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Saraba, Jalada Africa, Brittle Paper, Bakwa Magazine, River River, Expound, A Thousand Voices Rising: An Anthology of Contemporary African Poetry, Bombay Review, among others. A member of South Jersey Poets Collective, he lives in New Jersey where he writes, teaches, and performs regularly as a solo and collaborative pianist. He can be found online at www.artnduka.com.
