Bones can speak long after the flesh has gone
– Victoria Adukwei Bulley
*
i was born in the middle of a farming season
with the same makeup as a prompt, satisfying rain
i was born before someone yelled fire
before the band of humanity broke and people ran into bushes
i was born attached to the mother’s hip, barely dropping on all toes
Ọ dị n’agbọ, people say, explaining this pliability of inherited bones
*
after the war when i became this human
too wrecked for credit, wilting and in dire need of help
with a face of shame; its full material
my rambunctious descriptions of home within a house
the new government wouldn’t offer me rest
wouldn’t care for my pleas to be left with one straight bone
*
in a new place
you repeatedly ask what made me mad
as if it is one thing
that brought on the hives, ripped a face off me
interesting exchange—your probing versus
what precedes me, native weight in my bones
Chiagoziem Jideofor is Queer and Igbo. Her debut collection, local remedies, is forthcoming from Host Publications.
