By Benard Nweke

Listen, The Bed Still Speaks

the echo too cold on the bed where we imagine your 

last supper with broken ceramics

remember, we make jokes about travel, but forget that 

some journeys have no trace of homecoming.

 joke about the body once soul now transformed into a spirit body

is it a joke when the tongue counts missing memories in the 

family tree? 

in anthropology class, I tear priests into a piece; teaching students 

you still count—that their dead is their dead.

Beyond the veil where echoes weep, you still stir the fight at

young blood.

no flesh. no breathing to the comatose of the politics,

still, you watch, play your part to the fullness of endless guess.

through broken wardrobes, & cobwebbed garb, we see

your height in the shape of elephants.

believe, the trees still sing your name through the weary lamentation

of the wind. some call it a whirlwind, but we call it whispering 

of belonging; of love lost long ago. of talents covered with soil; 

of fame denied names. 

beneath the earth, beneath the sky, you still walk.

you are not dead as if you are not dead.

because your name curves our tongue into remembrance—

such whisper shape the shifting sand.

dear, time will weave our faces into a rugged wall.

which is to say, your race is run.