Nana and the Wolf
Time’s licked me nut, and right to the bone.
Once, strange hands furred us down
and we were the nodes on furious mice.
Now, I operate from this, the dust-kitchen of my lap,
like a cook on conference call,
stellactating. I am bed iced, and sore.
A splinter, but sopping.
Little girl, climbed right between the nubs,
fretted my belly till it caved, loved me knowing
and unknowing I had grown our blood
sequestered. In rows, like mushrooms.
When you were a child we played clean as kettles
and I prized the printpress of your limbs, and skin,
because my looking read your living out-
Face fleshy little pig’s toe, fanny furled into a truffle.
But now, you’ve woken up foot wrinkled, and steaming
with the old game, caught arm down, wearing bite rungs
like chromosomes, saying
there are more ways to sully a sheet than with sleeping,
hey! as if I had chopped you out of nothing.
You asked the wrong question when you asked about the wolf.
first published on african-writing.com
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