Rasaq Malik Gbolahan
My Mother Gathers Grief Like pebbles. She gathers grief from the mouth of a radio that trembles on the table whenever gunshots hush the faint sound of peace in a country where people wake up to meet casualties of bombs, to read headlines of newspapers devoted to reporting tragedies in places attacked overnight by masked men, by insurgents whose voices burn our ears. My mother gathers grief from the hearts of the dying ones in refugee camps, from the hapless citizens of a country where children become victims of war, where women are forced into widowhood as their husbands remain buried in unidentified places. My mother gathers grief from the silence of children who attend the masjid to beg for food during Ramadan, from the flaccid breasts of mothers that know the meaning of losing their husbands to war, from the dishevelled hair of women who mourn all night, their light of happiness quenched by the flood of war. My mother gathers grief by listening to the sad stories of vagrants plodding deserted paths, by waiting all night for news from Syria, from countries where they bury corpses all day, while they spend their nights expecting more corpses to fill the streets.
Crab Orchard Review
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85