In Remembrance:
Letter to the woman, from the girl
--Free-write, after Rachel McKibbens
2014.
It’s okay to love hardest the gravestone name
or the image of drying blood
or his mama’s can’t-cry-no-more tears--
All that is left of him.
It’s okay to make a noose out of the number
of times you look at your reflection in the
mirror
and refuse to look back.
It’s okay to bulldoze your concert hall of a
body with silence,
to glare at all the mourners,
to love hardest the taste of your desert
mouth,
to fuck his brother and feel nothing
It’s okay to leave without leaving.
It’s okay to wake up the morning after
To the mis-sound of his voice calling your
name.
To love hardest this noiseless moment.
To turn your head and see that his brother
Is also a forthcoming obituary,
a black boy, afraid of himself.
It’s okay to leave without leaving.
Lydia Koku
--
15