Photograph Haibun

I lift a catalogue & I removed a photograph, here Mama is standing beside Papa, her eyes on her shoes like broken eggs on a glass, her mouth wielding a piercing smile, her face like a magnolia flower, her brows bereft of eyelashes, her wrists rounded by bangles like a cuff. Here, my mother is happy— true happiness. In this photograph, she doesn’t know what this future I’m sitting while writing this poem withholds for her. This smile that erupted my father’s mouth here, she would have wished it hadn’t expire. I picked another photograph, here she stands alone— 9 years later, & she is tying another nuptial knot. Here, her mouth searches for a smile, life had pillage its loss on this face. Her head wields an Asọ-òkè like grief tied Into folds. Fifteen years later, tonight, I walk into her room & I watch her pains unfold Into her sleep through the lines on her face. 

An assemblage of loss

like a winter wind

whizzes through Mama’s body