in the photos and the aftermath, the Sosoliso holds the likeness of
     an egg at breakfast,
     an egg, cracked in two halves,
     an egg, spilling unexpected yellowness
like sunflowers on the tarmac.

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in the photos and the aftermath, my mother says of my auntie:
     Osimiri niile na-agwụ
     All rivers have an end
which is to say, grief is a learned language,
                                      it is not our first tongue.

in the kitchen,
auntie Bibi insists, some things are better forgotten, sister,
her hands suddenly heavy on the chopping board,
her fingers stained the violent red of maimed tomatoes,
the air between them smudged, bulging with things ungleamingly remembered:
     say, the sterile whiteness of an airport,
     say, a fire-tarnished hull,
     say, voiceless screaming
     say, the yawning mouth of an open grave hungry for a son,
                                                                                                       a nephew,
                                                                                                       a cousin,

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     say, the half circle of my mother hands
about auntie's shoulders,
a consolation of fingers and thumbs,
say, my mother rocking the Lazarus of her body.

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I know now, auntie, that some memories should be submerged in bleach,
scrubbed until forgotten.
I know yearning is grief without a voice.
I know that when a child plants flowers in your ventricles, they never wilt,
            that when a songbird falls from the heavens with your children in its beak,
inside of you something splinters,
                      there are stains even water, even bleach, cannot cleanse.

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