‘Do you want to find a house without love?’ Mama said,
‘Check the pots: if they are empty, love has gone
far away into the wind, like chicken feathers
incapable of resistance – a collection of empty hearts.’
Mama’s Jollof was made with buckets of love
drawn from the tap of a heart that loved all;
add that to seventy-two years of blowing a fire
and mixing flavors that delighted the tongue.
The seventh day without Mama’s Jollof,
my sunken eyes stare into the empty pots
wondering if, like the rice she used to boil,
her soul can be made to rise from the grave.
My eyes are almost the hue of the peppers
she used to blend in union with onions,
then tomatoes, and boiled goat meat
fried in oil from the bottle I flung at the wall.
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