by Saddiq Dzukogi
This is a time he won’t forget—You pouring your brother’s watercolor on the linen
he now holds like a map, a compass that shows
the place you’ve gone to, drawn in greasepaint,
alive, grown, in a schoolyard playing with other kids your age. You’re 12. In other images, you’re 16, 20, 31, married—
playing with your toes, like you did with his,
your children are fully-fledged, have children of their own. You’re plaiting the hair of one. A song in the mouth of a ghost,
a gust of wind from a skull below
his wave of remembrance and desire— a stone
carved out of a bigger stone, a grave-wall
opens into a room that misplaced your body,
moved from labyrinth to labyrinth, until the weight of your passing breaks a foothold. He remembers your mother
removing chaff from the unhusked rice,
you, playing on the millstone, ruining your napkin. The same he clenched
in his fist while glancing at your tomb.
This is how you pull him out
of the ground, giving him your hand,
pulling until he falls
into the temple where you’ve been waiting,
possessed with longing.
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