We have crossed wide and wild waters
and back. But my father’s house – then
in rich indigo colour shimmering even in thick
darkness had gone deep into the woods
and stones. The seasonal bullets of
rain had potholed the zinc and ceiling,
that when it rains our house becomes
an island of dryness. The sharp hands
of time had peeled off and cracked the
rich indigo skin of the walls. Each crack
is a geckos’ abode. Every portraits
adorning the walls had been raped by
the rusts of ages. A few had worn and
torn, falling gradually like my mother’s
grey hairs. Even the shelf where through
books we saw the nakedness of the
world still speaks of an unripe absence –
that was father who returned from the
bullets of war, dropped his bald head
on the reading desk and submitted
into an endless sleep when we were
still naked boys. We heard silences
discuss about our long absences in our
room and father’s room that now reeked
of cobwebs, caked dusts and ghostliness.
My mother’s room is still a cemetery of
buried happiness with stretched scars of
shattered memories covered by cobwebs
of silence. Each scar is still untold history
long hidden in her agelong pains, and her
eyes still speak the language of waters at
the mention of my Father’s name that still
tastes like catacomb in her mouth. She said
yesterday, on her 85th Birthday that it is
on record that during wars our Father’s
Phallus would always play forced
pornography inbetween the thighs of the
defenceless women in the presence of
their unarmed men, like he did in Asaba.
And He was made the hero of the nation!

…

Madu Chisom Kingdavid is a Nigerian Poet, Folktale Writer, Historian, Paint Maker and Football Analyst.