Poetry: “a dead child has something to say about _____” by Martins Deep

loss is
++the mother +tongue of life. see how +whatever it touches becomes +fluent, speaks
it differently, obeying its rules +of grammar like it never, +anything else. before now,
you never knew you+ were this multilingual. i mean, you could+ uninstall duolingo now
& be good. you say +perte in french, & autocorrect +turns it into a year—an event
that reminds you +how fragile an animal you are +with that will, that hope, in that body
with hands holding my +hands, trying to draw it +out of this circle +drawn with salt.
i mean, with the fingers+of your hands+with a history+of escape routes, trying to save me
from being a memory +at six in six places. i, +an innocence +guilty of b-r-e-a-k-i-n–g
my promise of staying+to tread, in gazelle grace, its shards+as upon confetti, into the definition
of death +as simply a return to solitude. +what else could it mean +but staying awake +outside
a body dead +asleep, keeping watch +for mother’s voice +just when, just where
it cracks +to bear a root +with the lifespan of its bloom.

& this thing you have +against yourself keeps me +returning to the space +in this loop
to speak that one language +to it, hoping it fails to speak it +back to me; reminding me
of the sweet scent of baby oil, of+that dream of growing up+into a memory+at twenty-
two with a lover’s lips +burned into my birthmark, the music of a yowl +at midnight.
a hope to speak it back to me+ mounted on an anopheles, +so there is an excuse +to mishear it.
i mean, my kindred +spirits calling me +out of my nostrils +just when i could
make a promise +to not go +down in the river with a sun +the yellow of my jaundice.
but the silence of my heart +is not my silence. you must listen for +me, as i am, +for you,
a chirping cricket somewhere +you never find to swat it +quiet, a birdie +asking you when
the season will come +again i will be +wanted madly, yours +sincerely, the hope
that kills—that leaves+ the fingerprints of loss++ at

+++++++++the murder scene.

Author’s Note: This is about Abiku, a Yoruba term that refers to a spirit believed to be reborn into the same family, often associated with the repeated, premature death of a child.