Hussain Ahmed is a Nigerian writer and environmentalist. His poems are featured or forthcoming in Puerto del Sol, Nashville Review, Hobart, decomP, Cherry Tree and elsewhere.---------
Taxonomy: Grief
its noon and there’s grief in the air
a girl surrounded by elephants three times her age
their tusks bent towards the sky as if in supplication
there’s a seat for everyone because it’s no taboo
for women to mourn she walks down the aisle alone
despite her shoulder blade heavier with each step
the mourners are hungry but it’s a taboo
to ask for food when the deceased had no grey hairs.
the echoes in your stomach tell of how empty you
have become you emptied your bladder through your eyes
your body is now thirty percent water seventy percent salt.
on the bench she remembers how they met
the curl of his lips when he calls her name
the forecast on the radio claimed it will rain it didn’t
this could be another bad dream she doesn’t want to see
for too long she had wanted to give the women her eyes
there is no way those eyes were hers
she grew faint, her shadows barely visible under a bulb
she saw her new self in the mirror shy to stare into the eyes from the reflection
like it was on her first date
she feels a pulse farther from her rib cage just below her navel
where she hopes to get a tattoo of his name scribbled in red