Never whisper into an empty house. A dead woman

might appear bearing a banquet of fresh flowers.

Sometimes a god cannot predict what monster

carves itself out of emptiness. Turn off the phone

before it rings. Then lights. Light is a bad company.

Even a cockroach shirks its shadow as a form of survival.

Bury the piano in your basement. Every song

is a grieving song. Be it your sick mother’s sotto voce

singing your baby monsters to sleep. Memory

always finds a way to keep itself alive, un-forsaken,

through time. Close the doors and windows.

The gravedigger might come asking for a cup of water.

Do not blame the old man banging at your door.

There’s actually no holiness in seeking for

what the body truly wants. Practice ecdysis: cast off

your funeral clothes like a curse. Some things are not

meant to survive the romance of grief, even memory.

Forgetting is an act of protest. Pour fuel over memory

and set on fire. Wait till nothing burns except ash.

Extinguish the fire. What we remember can either

be a weapon or a song. Turn yours into a happy

bloodless song. Wear something new. Be born anew.

There are people waiting outside your door. Open.

Dance baby, dance. Someone will bring you marigolds soon.

Njoku Nonso is a Nigerian Igbo-born poet, essayist, writer of fiction, and medical student, who lives and writes in/from Ojoto as a tribute to the spirit of Christopher Okigbo. His works has been featured or is forthcoming in Bodega, Momento: An Anthology of Contemporary Nigeria, Rising Phoneix Press, The Shore, Brittle Paper, Kissing Dynamite, Praxis and elsewhere. He’s a Pushcart nominee, a Semifinalist for Jack Grapes Poetry Prize and a finalist of Open Drawer Poetry Contest. He’s currently working on his first poetry chapbook, and still loving stray dogs. Hook up on twitter @NN_Emmanuels