Ancestry
If my grandfather ever touched my body
I do not remember. I was barely
Reasonable when he died and
This has made me learn that
No matter how tragic an experience
We only mourn the parts of it
That burns the presence of our lives,
So on the only surviving photo of him, sachets
Of history hang beneath his redolent
Colonial eyes staring at this one part of my soul
From where I attempt to language a catalogue
Of trauma whose tragedy lived in the years
Of my unborn and I wonder, what part
Of this ancestral face have I inherited?
The ears like two Neanderthal flaps
Corridoring the face which hues my shadow?
The sunbeam on forehead like a monocle
Reflecting a chalice of candle lights?
On his identity card, his occupation
Heralds his deftness in the agro industry and
This must be the effect of various
Animal voices echoing my ignorance whenever
I go in search of history—and
The only things I find are what the war
Allows of me, yet this isn’t just about
The genocidal Biafran war, this is also
About the unknown wars all the men in my ancestry
Had to fight, for even my father thinks his still
Being alive is a miracle on trial, and
Everyone mutters the reincarnated spirit
Of my brothers and me so when I gaze at
My grandfather’s face I see a man who
I have not only forgotten his touch
But whose spirit I am too negligent to allow remember in me.
The Cathedral
outside the cathedral, the walls hold their arms together
barricading the beggars skinned in the second coming,
the arena split open with cars all waiting yet
the wails and moans from the central square
do not plunder the silence of God dwelling in
this immaculate hall and the crying babies—
all stunned by the void created during the consecration
of host and wine mistake it for the hunger of the earth
and they reach for their mothers’ breasts to ascertain
that the nostrils of rapture does not swallow the sweetest things
the priest raises the wafer as the stray bird flutters into
the hollow-ceilinged chamber above the alter like an ally from heaven
the chandelier of lights hang low like an ascending Elijah caught in traffic
and we see the universe through all the eyes staring
blindly at the degenerate yeast of holy flesh from Jerusalem, and
I wish to say like the priest to everyone surrendered in holiness here:
this is my flesh and blood, do have a taste of me,
but I do not have the sweetness of a messiah
and everything in me is all at once, full of bile
and I walk, with my legs and hands clasped together
to receive this breaded love which is history and divine,
and I walk, with my legs and hands clasped together
to the altar of confession, Jesuit priest hidden behind netted confessional as
redundant hearing piece for the incomprehensible ears of God .
I whisper, forgive me father for I have sinned against this city.
Chimezie Umeoka is a writer from Aba, Nigeria. He majors in English and Literary Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Having appeared in several journals and publications, Chimezie has edited the first student journal in West Africa, The Muse Journal. He is presently the Chief Custodian of The Writers’ Community, UNN.
Cover photo credit: SevenStorm JUHASZIMRUS