when breadwinners die

we start by writing pain on plain leaves

and setting our eyes above the promises

of yesterday

to see shining stars buried in the dark.

and when we write pain on plain leaves

gravediggers nod to consent to what we’ve written

since they have dug graves & buried as much pain

but they feel no pain than the hen

who lost her chick to the claws of a hawk

and while we throw roses on gravestones

with tears racing down our faces to moisten the soil

gravediggers swing shovelfuls of red earth

into the yawning grave.

& once the graves have been fed

we remember tomorrow and her chanciness

and all those who’d come for their debts at dusk.

A Hollow Only Death Can Fill

To Peter and everyone who died on life-support

i have spoken with death

to announce his coming

let me have the space to write my epitaph

& take my household to point at where my tombstone shall lay. 

    

i have asked sleep to pre-inform me of my last

let me lay on my bed with both legs on their mark

& at their exodus              to transit away from a life that comes in crumbs.

i am the man whom death

is yet to visit

i am the living dead. the one on life-support

waiting for death by instalment

i have seen my casket & the golden wares coated around it

like the multi-coloured beads hugging the curvy waist of a Kenyan maiden.

i have imagined how the community will cry     at

the same funeral where they’d feast when i’m laid to rest

should the world go hungry because a seat at the dining table is empty?

life has brought more than i can carry          much as i bow

to the pains of unsustainable breath

somewhere in a room, i sit like an effigy

facing the window that looks through a riverbank

& wondering how what had been given free for decades

would later cost a life savings

i have tried to give living a second chance to take the whole of me

& save my kindreds from emotional purges and global donations on my name

at each attempt, i hear my pleas echo back at me          like

i have entered an empty room where no god exists

since living ostracized my pleading voice

i am giving death a chance.