Memory is the story you were told about a city

which fell off an atlas into the hands of assailants,

who slashed the tongues of your elders,

and smothered the night with bullets and blood.

You were told that the sea was freedom

when your fathers and sons drowned with chains

into the blueness of a coulee

so that when the flames come screaming at your city,

with you behind bars

and your daughter severely injured between the laps,

you will remember the name of your mother

and the river she was lost in.

____________

Nwaoha Chibuzor Anthony is an Igbo-born poet whose poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Headline poetry and press, African writer, Kalahari review, Art lounge, Nantygreens, Konya shasrumi, Eboquills, Praxis magazine, Afritondo, Eunoia review & elsewhere. He lives in Orlu, a sleepy city in the Southeastern part of Nigeria.

Photo Credit: Photo by Andre Moura from Pexels