My Mother’s Granddad

 

My mother tells me

I am her grandfather,

a medicine man, old, grey,

teeth like tobacco stick

or cigarette stubs,

eyes like herbs, the face of an ashtray.

When the flood comes

I walk on the sea like the wind;

she says I am her old man,

who heals her diseases,

who makes her laugh,

who makes her cry and smile,

a pack of flowers, a vase, an urn,

where diamonds glitter in darkness,

where light hides the dark.

She says I am a slice of cake,

with no icing, no seasonal,

but everyone has a piece of me

sitting restlessly in their homes.

My skin is Heaven’s sand

and I have grown scales

like the fish, the snail,

swallowing leaves like water,

with a body like yam tubers,

a face like the bullying sky,

arms like tree branches,

legs like the cords of a bridge.

Perhaps I am a bridge

between today and yesterday,

between yesterday and tomorrow.

Maybe I am my great-grandfather,

who travels from town to town

healing the sick, raising the dead,

his bicycle bell waking up the neighbours,

his voice ringing out like cymbals.

The day he died, he appeared on a banana tree

and crouches like a crow,

telling the world how soon he comes

to pass judgment on his children.

Then, the war happens in time

and there's no judgment of his people,

but there's the slaughter of their smiles.

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Jonathan Chibuike Ukah's poems have been featured in Propel Magazine, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets, Atticus Review and elsewhere. He has won a number of awards including The Alexander Pope Poetry Award for The Pierian in 2023. His poetry collection, I Blame My Ancestors, published by Kingsman Quarterly, was the second runner-up at the Kingsman Quarterly Poetry Slam in 2024.

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