I Wear The Light | Chimezie Umeoka

Sing, brother, for our life has become a miracle 

& the sun is sparkling on the corridor again.

In the memory of my ear, I hear you whisper to me

How Frank Edwards will need such a good

Replacement, & you are working towards it,

With the guitar on the crook of your arms, standing 

On the stage, lights gazing at the slenderness of your body.

Again, I pretend to be a cosplay in the audience,

Misty-eyed from shedding tears to the sound of your music.

O brother, we are alive again, today, in this song.

Someone said we can reinter many lives in our dreams

So in this one, where Pa and Ma are together again

In the house where birds sing ballads on the roofs 

& we laugh at the nude scene of distant neighbours,

I sit below you, offering my tenor which you think will get better with time,

You sing the one where Don Moen speaks Igbo 

And children laugh acoustically in the background.

O brother, I am among those children

The light enters my mouth, my teeth are laughing in my gums.

Brother, our life has become a miracle again.