Soon My Grandmother Will Be Buried in Kumasi

a poem by Adwoa Agyepong

I spent the week at home, watching Dawson’s creek, wondering
why my body had stopped working
(Yours of course, had stopped working months ago)
I was supposed to be in class
(And you were supposed to be on the farm)
I was on the couch
(And you were in the ground)
The TV said: we might die here, so let’s talk about regret
I don’t know what I regret
Maybe I regret not knowing my grandparents
And maybe I regret the barriers
The tall bar that I never had the strength to climb
the pommel horse I could never latch on to
(I have the height of a gymnast, but none of the strength)
Maybe I regret the feelings
My grandmother drowned them in Ezile Bay
There’s so much to say, but I don’t have the voice
or the sounds
There is nothing connecting us
But the gold in our veins
The coast in our emotions
It’s hot here 5000 miles away, and we are connected by this
heat and nothing else
This blood and nothing else
This love with nowhere to go and nothing else
Soon my grandmother will be buried in Kumasi
And I will be here.

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