When God called the animals,
two by two. Each came
foreign unto itself. Only knowing its name once
told. A man is called into his name
each time it is spoken.
Or a man becomes more of himself
each time he is called by his name.
When my mother calls from a distant continent,
I must travel her voice to come into myself.
I measure how far I am from myself
by the length it takes to walk along my mother’s voice
into my name. When my mother sends for me
in my Twi name, I measure how far I am from myself
by what language I use to respond. I learn
naming is how one becomes a self.
I know calling makes one return.
Akosua Zimba Afiriyie-Hwedie is a Zambian-Ghanaian poet who grew up in Botswana. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan. She is the author of Born in a Second Language (July, 2021), winner of Button Poetry’s 2019 Chapbook Contest. She placed 3rd in Palette Poetry’s 2020 Emerging Poet Prize and is a winner of a 2019 Hopwood Award and a 2018 Meader Family Award. She is a finalist of a 2020 WAN Poetry Prize, the 2020 Narrative 12th Annual Poetry Contest, the 2020 Brunel International African Poetry Prize, the 2020 Palette Poetry Spotlight Award, the 2020 Furious Flower Poetry Prize, the 2019 Wick Poetry Center’s Peace Poem contest and received a 2020 Best of the Net Nomination. Akosua has received fellowships from Tin House, the Helen Zell Writers’ Program, Callaloo, and the Watering Hole. Her works appear or are forthcoming in Narrative, PANK, Kweli, Obsidian, Birdcoat Quarterly, Wildness, The Felt, and elsewhere. Reach her on AkosuaZah.com.
