chrysanthemum

by Sodiq Oyekanmi

Danielle Suijkerbuijk

for F

i start this in the name of the grief which now ripens on my brother’s head — a floral garden i’m walking through as i pen this poem. i pluck a chrysanthemum…

& i swear to God, this is supposed to be a poem about perfumed flowers & not grief growing in vases meant for roses. tell me, what is it about grief that keeps morphing

into a synonym for everything beautiful? it is September 2013, & my brother is alive. he beams to a birthday gift card with a note that says:

remember to blossom.

with light & love. — R.

& life becomes Eden; & there is no shattered heart shawled with euphemism; & no rainbow-coloured pills filling blank spaces; & no gloom; no room caging a [ ] to death.

i remember him this way: a pen in hand, composing a poem for R — a poem about flowers. isn’t life pretty strange, that at this moment i squat beside your grave, writing this poem for you?

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Sodiq Oyekanmi is a poet, playwright and thespian; a student of the University of Ibadan, where he currently studies Theatre Arts. He enjoys writing poetry as he sees this as a therapeutic creative outlet. His works have appeared/forthcoming in Pidgeonholes, The Shallow Tales Review, African Writer Magazine, Brittle Paper, Black Youth Magazine, The Drinking Gourd, Rigorous Magazine, Kalahari Review, Praxis Magazine and The Anthology of Boys Men & Others III. He co-judged the AKUKO inaugural literary competition with Rosed Serrano. A hopeless romantic who tweets @sodiqoyekan.