When you enter my mother’s room
you’ll find her on her knees
lamenting before the holy ghosts.
She’s hardly making fire in the kitchen
but there’s nothing my mother won’t roast
with the fire of the holy ghost
just like the devils in her marriage.
She begins with her in-laws,
one by one, dressing them in prayers
the way roadside barbecuers
prepare their special tilapia.
Then she grabs Uncle Darrick,
my father’s younger brother,
(that she calls the parrot of the family)
and roasts him into ashes.
Yet, he’d be the first at our door
knocking, the following morning.
All night, my mother browses the scriptures
otherwise, she would be on the mountain;
this way, chasing God around the clock.
Every morning, from a crack in our kitchen door
I will watch my father’s anger boiling,
as the water kettle bubbles
while my mother sprawls helplessly
face up, on her bed, snoring.
