The Ways You Know Grief; My heart In Another Language; Grandmother’s Many Lessons – Three Poems by Ghanaian Writer Kataru Yahya

The Ways You Know Grief

grief is a childless mother who eats her young / she’s an axis / a disciple of loss and

life / she’d watch you flay yourself living / pull away when you try to hold on to

her / you’re left on your own / you only have you / with your thousand and one

pains / you wrap yourself around yourself / there she is again / pissing onto your

face.

My Heart in another Language

In Hausa, we call the heart zuciya

So then, my heart becomes zuciya na

Zuciya na –

She’s found a new way to perish

Trusting the shadowy words of men

Speaking all the languages of death

Slipping into pain like it’s her home

Zuciya na –

She sings while she burns.

Grandmother’s Many Lessons

Grandmother taught me to peel grief from my body

She taught me to name my nameless fears

Trickle into spaces

Into people

Spill myself out of my vessel

Grandmother taught me to open the world’s eyes to me.