This morning, in the mirror
I saw my dead uncle. This time, he didn’t have an afro
he had grown beard, looks like he brought his afro
to the chin & cheeks.
Of all the dead uncles, he’s the one
the aunties cry about.
Even death loved something about him
to want him from us. Something the others didn’t have
or death just takes—like a lottery, random picks.
Death is like a lie, it never ends—
it keeps taking in defense.
When we asked for answers
he took another & another & another &—
until grandma asked her only living son to take/want
his nephews as his brothers.
But that did to him what this line does to this poem.
Henneh Kyereh Kwaku is the author of Revolution of the Scavengers, selected by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani for the APBF New Generation African Poets Chapbook Series. He won third place for the Samira Bawumia Literature Prize in 2020. He does poems; he has poems. He is a Bachelor of Public Health, Disease Control graduate of the University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ghana. Kwaku is from Gonasua in the Bono Region of Ghana. Contact him via—Twitter/IG: @kwaku_kyereh & Henneh Kyereh Kwaku on Facebook.