You sit on the connubial bed, staring at a
huge canvas painting on the wall.
Because loss makes the body aware, we listen to
the croaks of toads in suspended hours.
I’ve stumbled upon grief at the expanse of your gaze.
You, my bald queen who lost her hair to a failed chemotherapy.
The night’s silent with premonition.
The stars are sunken.
How heart wrenching is love that precedes death, or the
nigh inevitability of it?
I’d promise you life if I could take mine to
restore yours (because what encounters you asphyxiates
my crave for tomorrow’s),
but I’ve sauced the turkey in the skillet’s hysteria,
would offer my winsome pantomimes: O, Grief enters
where the skin is tenderest!
Kei Vough Korede (he/they) is a Nigerian bi/queer poet. He tweets humor @Kayvough, and debauchery @brooklynjoybird.