This city…
This city is built on a swamp that intended to be a mountain
But never quite grew the shoulders for clouds
And now it hides itself under old houses and serves as a stage whenever rain comes down to dance…and rain always comes down to dance…
The sun shies away most days, like it’s owing us money.
Mother’s two hands clench the top of the steering wheel right next to each other…
Like the hands of a broken clock,
Like they don’t trust each other.
Like one’s going to escape…
Mother says a broken clock is right twice a day,
& she says a broken spirit has no use for a clock…
Last winter, our neighbor, who was a heart — a broken one at least, in khakis and a jean jacket,
gave mother his clock before his truck fed down the cobalt road and he dissolved into russet sunset,
He said time doesn’t heal wounds,
“not if you keep staring at it…”
Now, mother keeps her head forward
The rain has come to dance again
And has made the city a gloomy painting capturing a scene of fleeing shadows
Who appear just as ready for the rain as they are shocked to see it…
We’re on our way to the train station
To pick up my aunty…
Mother isn’t happy, and I know it,
She hates when Aunty Sade comes to town…
I’ve never had an itch to ask her why
But I think she tried to tell me once,
One day, when I was young,
I think eight years ago…
When the floorboards didn’t used to tell on my feet
When licking drops of sugar off the kitchen counter used to seem like the perfect crime,
When my shadow still fascinated me…
A scream poured out of my throat and climbed up the basement steps to fetch mother…
When she arrived, fright and fight wearing her clumsily,
she picked me off the ground where I’d fallen and become paralyzed in my horror,
Her trembling voice begged an explanation, and I told her that I’d seen a ghost…
She looked around and found only her own reflection in the shattered mirror I’d knocked over on the ground…
Is that why you shouted? Mother fell into laughter.
Later in the evening,
The rain bickering with the window sill
I, perched on the kitchen counter,
Wrapped in a towel, next to a bowl of hot soup,
Quivered like the leaves braving the rain outside.
Mother smiled and said I couldn’t have seen a ghost…
She said a ghost is someone trapped in a place they don’t want to be,
feeling things they don’t want to feel…relieving the same illusions over and over again…
“This city is full of them” she laughs.
Mother is afraid that Aunt Sade would become a ghost like everyone else in this city,
That every time she visits could become her last,
Like she’d be trapped here and would never leave
“This city never really buries anyone…
It only creates more ghosts.”
The car pets the wet road and politely turns into the train station
I know mother wants me to go with her to find and greet Aunty Sade
But I think I want to stay in the car…
I think I haven’t been asking the right questions
Does mother see herself as a ghost?
Does she not want to be here?
Does she not want to feel all the things she’s been feeling?
What has she been feeling?
People only ever leave this place,
No one ever really comes back to stay…
Aunty Sade approaches the car,
I climb over and squeeze my way into the backseat,
so she can sit upfront with mother.
Her soft cotton jacket flicks a whiff of her perfume against my face.
The ride back home is silent and heavy
The radio doesn’t have much to say
The windshield wipers sweep blurry figures off the screen
“Does it ever stop raining in this place?” Aunty Sade laughs. “And before you know it, it’ll dry up again…”
“Then it’ll rain again…” mother taps the steering wheel and shakes her head “… and repeat!”
“I’m almost sure it’s the same exact water it’s been recycling all these years…” Aunty Sade shakes her head
We arrive home and mother makes dinner for us to eat,
I let her sit at the table with her sister,
So they can talk,
Mother still arranges a third plate for me…
I don’t think Aunty Sade likes that very much.
I sit in front of the TV and watch the news
Dinner becomes heavy too.
Aunty Sade peers at mother,
And I can tell mother is uncomfortable…
They have the conversation again
The one where Aunty Sade asks mother questions she knows the answers to…
I know Aunty means well.
She doesn’t want me and mother here by ourselves.
“It’s been eight years,” she begs and squeezes mother’s hand…”You can’t keep doing this to yourself. This house isn’t letting you move on…”
“Sade, not this again…” mother groans…
“I’m sorry,” Aunty apologizes, “I just can’t accept you being in this creepy house all alone…” Aunty puts her fork down and leans back into her seat. “There’s no one else here, Bisi…” she shakes her head strongly.
“I know…”
“Then why have you set a third plate?”
