Moths & Origami Children
by Ojo Taiye
published in Whale Road Review, Winter 2018
i taste my mother’s sickness in my mouth & analyze the spittle: (grief lies folded in a woman’s hand) what we’ve left behind can be disturbing can i touch your throat? a pile of daylight composed of many meanings names emerge from the centre of each thing love. butterfly fields of daisies. mother blood. moths are burning mid-flight & you whisper folding into origami children we name parts of our body after flowers—we carry the dead like seeds we carry our wounds like orifices i want to write a poem that will have a woman’s pulse inside first verse: you get smaller as you lose your heart second verse: shovel off the dirt of buried memories—you should be tired of chewing the same bones day in & day out third verse: try holding your breath for infinity fourth verse: each drop of love is like sunset in the mouth of a stranger last verse: spend less of life attached to absence hook up a poem directly to your heart
