SANKOFA

(after Afua Ansong)

(2025)

Mother once held my name in her mouth, soft 

as ripened fruit, rolling it on her tongue like a lullaby, 

like river songs. She would call me from the threshold 

of evening, her voice a gentle drumbeat, the world 

pausing between each syllable: Tɛ-Tɛ.

When she left, the name left too. It folded itself 

into the wind, became an echo, a feather, a thing lost 

between worlds. Now, I search for it in old maps, 

in conversations between strangers carrying the scent of home. 

I dig through the red earth of memory, brushing dust off 

Heirlooms – a song, a name, a bowl of banku & black pepper 

sauce cooling off, the scent of smoked fish & millet 

porridge, the songs she sang into the night.

But the past is a door I cannot open, 

a river that does not flow backward.

Sε wo werε fi nawosankofa a, yenkyi – it is no shame 

to return for what was left behind. Yet, how do you return 

to a mother’s absence? How do you gather the taste 

of soup left unstirred, the weight of fabric 

folded by hands long gone? 

Tonight, I am standing beneath an empty sky. 

Call my name the way she once did. Wait for the wind 

to answer, for the moon to carry it home.

Somewhere in my dream, my mother hums a tune 

only birds remember. Somewhere, my name lingers 

in the folds of the wind, waiting to be reclaimed – waiting 

to return to the mouth that first called it, 

where I no longer know how to answer.

LOVE IN THE SHAPE OF ABSENCE 

(for aunt Safiyya)

(2025)

“I was thinking about what it takes to love expansively amidst constant unfathomable loss, how love and loss sharpen each other. What happens when we let grief become a portal to love, and vice versa?” – Chibueze Crouch-Anyarogbu

Dark-skinned like cocoa peas, soft voice, innocent 

as a dove, gentle as dawn breaking in a country 

where children still gather for a grandmother’s folktales. I dream 

of you, of the stories you never told me, of how my 

grandfather would sit at the edge of his room after Fajr, 

newspaper in one hand, a cup of tea in the other, 

the steam rising like a prayer. 

I dream of my aunts oiling your cornrow, their hands 

moving slowly, cocoa butter glistening on your forehead

– bright as the first star after dusk, as the memories we 

carry but cannot hold. I too, know a thing about loss & love.

What does it mean to lose & love all at once? 

To call your name in a room that no longer echoes? 

Grief is a door we walk through without knowing if we 

will ever return. It is the silence after laughter, the empty 

space where a body should be. I hear your footsteps

– soft as the first rain, as the hush of a mother pressing 

her child to her chest. 

What does it take to love expansively in a world that is 

always subtracting? Perhaps love is the only thing grief 

cannot steal, the only thing that does not fade when 

the body does. I dream of you, dear aunt, standing at the 

doorway, the edge of your dress gathering the wind, your 

face gentle as dusk falling over a quiet home & I wonder 

if love, even in loss, can still be enough.