mythmaking

by Chiagoziem Jideofor

i had a brother until the floods came, memories of him alive before he was swept under.
with grief, why there’s too much of these June clouds, idle contemplation in the devil’s

workshop, thoughts of where people come from, chemical accidents, computer zip files, where
they go from here, the room next door, hair roots, off shore data banks, if death is the answer

or just another sliding door, answers that befuddle me. on some days, why i dig deeper,
past the unassuming fields of my childhood, past evenings the sun dies

a bloody orange, past long ventilated halls in disagreement with the permanence of death,
past boundary-marking baobab trees storing most of the excesses in a season,

past lessons on digging up the earth, sacrifices that demand half a hand, before the whole
length, past a material-artist working hard at flesh, crude engagement with the perceived,

past details in charcoal, bare-bone descriptions of figures that wouldn’t speak or retort, past rivers
feeding the hungry pipes at home, past the septuagenarian taking big sour bites from the

family’s curse, so used to deaths in his prime, past hands, wavering hands as unwrapping fear,
past readiness—a burning oil lamp in hand, the revolving door at the end of this hall.