Somewhere in a Bleeding May
Perfect Kwabena Yeboah
I ask you, “Where is he?”
“Your father is a good, good man,
he will come back
when the rains stop," you say.
Why has it not stopped, Maame?
He stabs a fateful May
in broad daylight
and wipes the blade on your hands,
Naming you culprit.
Somewhere, still, rain—
Eyes red
Nostrils hot
Bentoareturns
To the tender bottoms
Of stubborn children.
Silence.
And grief,
curled on the sofa
supplants the man
dissipating,
into the weeping sky.
Maame ei, you do not hear us.
Only because your palms
blood-and-soot-dyed,
drown our ululations
before they even rise.
This, my final question:
Why does he hound my door—
fofo leaves between pinched lips,
a matchstick and a tin of kerosene?
This hearth he quenched
Refuses his fire.
My father is a gone, gone man.
I am the shore
That May bleeds upon.
for Asuamah & Nana Tuffour
PERFECT KWAME YEBOAH is a writer born and bred in suburban Kumasi. A recent graduate of Komenda College of Education, his academic passions span Inclusive STEAM education, behavioural psychology and the proper recognition of signed languages. His writing explores spirituality, human essence, family and societal trauma and the behaviours it quietly passes down. He believes that the most honest writings are the ones that cost the author something. When he is not writing or reading, he is eating fufu and light soup at his mother’s. He writes on Substack at @KwabenalovesJesus. Somewhere in a Bleeding May is his first published poem.