by Taiwo Hassan
thank you,
for showing up every day,
for being a constant reminder
that my mother’s voice is never too far
to guide me back home,
for picking every grain of rice and dissecting
every bone left unpicked from my kitchen sink,
for diluting all the earnest pleas this big purple room
can’t thin out anymore with your crows.
thank you for standing by my gate
at exactly 7.30 in the morning,
for being a perfect representation of punctuality
when almost every good thing in my life
seems to be blooming late
for flapping your wings so hard before releasing
the entropy in your lungs,
thank you for fluttering over the fence on days
the gate becomes an extended wall,
for showing me that flight is another synonym for fight
for taking the stone pelts, the hot rice water,
the occasional yells,
for the lesson that shame is a universal language
thank you for the dissected heaps of nylon sheets,
plastic bottles, rotting pictures, broken bottles,
for standing tall on them and carrying hope on your golden beak.
thank you for tearing down these tall dry corn plants
and making me witness the
places your feet can reach when hunger glints in your eyes
thank you for terrorizing these annoying cockroaches,
and showing lizards that even a predator can be a prey.
thank you for standing under my roof
on days the sky decides to conceive,
for shivering,
crowing,
living, despite.
Taiwo Hassan is a writer of Yorùbá descent, a poet, and a vocalist. His works have also appeared in Uncanny Magazine, trampset, The Shore, ANMLY, and several other places. His first book, Birds Don’t Fly For Pleasure, was published by River Glass Books.