3 Poems | Emmanuel G. G. Yamba

The lady with the issue of breast cancer

for Ma Nancy

during the delivery of this poem,
the savior didn’t feel the touch
of the lady with the issue of breast cancer

it has flipped, three years now
since you jumped out of the land of the living
& i still wonder if your nipple pumps water
like the victoria’s fall

i wish my aunty was dorcas
that from her goodwill
& prayer you could come back to life

till now it puzzles me
if your body has turned to dust
& i ponder over the fate of the insects that feast on your flesh

if the body in the grave was an image in glass frame,
then the pieces was going to be in the dustbin
& what you have become would have been plain to me

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Past glory

i swear to the air i breathe, i know grief
while learning how to walk, pain marked my skin

my ears started hearing choir of guns from birth
& the congregation of people felt never to rise again
i didn’t tell my little brother how dad’s jaw kissed a gun’s butt

each time i see a happy family,
i think of how childbirth caused my mother’s early death
my dad too falling prey to illness

these memories made me look insane
it pushed me to question God’s decision: “why me?”

when you suffer loss,
family will love from death to burial
& later start feeding you with hurtful words morning, till evening:
till morning

i tried to cover my leaking skin by dressing in laughter
but my scars are seen deep in my eyes
i face the wall whenever i cry to hide my tears from my little brother

we moved from place to place like in the times of war; people kicking us out
& stuffing us with words of grief ( cursing our parents)
i only hope my little brother will be a Job

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My story

i.
when God said:
“let us make man in our own image and after our likeness “
i was excluded
when he gave men dominion,
inscribing their names in the palm of his hand
mine was omitted

then the Son of Man came as a potter
with the cross as the clay
the pain, grief, and mockery
created a mixture
& i was spilled as the creature

ii.
imagine being a blood splashed on the floor of barnersville by your own blood – a relative
during the night
and left to sleep in shelter by the mercy of a neighbor

though i was to be baptized
in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
my life emerge from Fear, Suffering and Hardship

iii.
there are sins equal to murder
amongst is hating a brother without cause

why will you quench earth’s thirst with the blood of a brother
when you are supposed to be a brother keeper
are you Cain?

iv.
i longed for peace
like a deer pants after a water brook
like a barren land seeks earnestly the birth of rain fall

there comes a day when peace will no longer be abstract
when the heart will accept every man as brother and woman as sister

v.
the Lord knows
the water I’m sprinkling through this poem is what I bath with

may he take away stones and give us heart of flesh again
that we will live in harmony

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