Paper Weight & Other Illusions
I write
As if there is a weight
I can attain
If I keep bleeding ink on paper
As if
This hand will become
A requiem that knows
How to bury a poem
In the echo
Of forgotten words
As if
This hand
Can grasp water
To turn its flowing
Into a burning
That names itself
As if I can pretend that
The ink on my pages
Is not asking for a name
To pacify its fear
Of slipping bluntly into
The blackened wood of this table
—–
The Hunger in Imitation
This is an exercise of imitation
A child’s attempt to
Stride as her father does
An imitation of a cleansing
For a house wrecked
By a rain that
Wanted to bury the night
Where its drops
Dissolved into the earth
I cannot hold names for long
In my mouth
Before I become a shadow
Of the voices I swallow
Is this hunger an act of greed…
To ask to be a home?
—–
Poetry © Salama Wainaina
Image: ChatGPT remixed