Agoloso Presents - Atondido Stories Agoloso Presents - Mama Mada | Page 150

Mama Mada
you wish-I-weren’t Blacks,
Niggeroes and Niggerenes.
You.
Ophelia
by Peter Kenny
You write your name on water
and then you sink.
A wet halo shrinks
around your face
and you sink
lips last.
Ophelia
why didn’t you float like the others?
Why didn’t you drift downstream with a glut
of Pre-Raphaelite flowers?
I’m terrified that you’ve stopped breathing
or that you gulp the dim, death-gladdening murk,
where everything’s refracted
bending the sticks and searching arms.
For you are not where you seem to be
and your ears are full of sand
and there’s a stone in your soul so big,
I’m not sure if you want me
to lift you up or hold you under.
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