Jonathon Chibuike Uka is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2024 Poetry Contest
My Sister’s Breakfast
The things my sister eats for breakfast,
eat me up when I think about them;
five out of seven days in a week,
she swallows a whole bottle of her reflection,
ziggy-zagging shadows on the surface of the water,
or in the sun, cast by the wind,
which she drops beside her table,
while her other hand picks up a granola of air.
A large tray of selfies, mammoth lip-licking,
and the bust of eyelashes at everyone
are often the main course.
There is enough room for salvation,
when her stomach has inhaled the aroma
of a life spent playing hide and seek with death;
a can of laughter, a plate of smiles
and a whole meal of glances at the trees
which fills the space she calls a garden.
She could not make up her mind on the distance
between popcorns, peanuts and groundnuts,
classifying them as the evil carriers of fats
which her slender body abhors.
For my sister is a perfect body shaper,
to be worn by anyone who detests opulence.
Do not remind her of such frosty habits,
as beans, plantain or rice and potatoes,
fish, cereals, vegetables and fruits
or visiting the gym if she touches fat
by accident.
She could hold a grudge longer than permitted,
if she wants to vomit all that she has eaten,
into endless depths of despair,
and will wonder at the efficacy of such a therapy
to lose every pound in her bones.
As for the effectiveness of malice in healing obesity,
it’s a long-worn iron-clad jacket
against the lavender settlement of the sun,
though she must avoid her heart
falling in the twilight of a meltdown.
Never ask my sister about drinking honey,
either as an appetiser or a dessert
or eating a whole house of fibre,
if you don’t want her to empty her bitterness on you.
Whatever issues she has with rivers,
she transfers to water, the innocent victim
of her venom, where she worries about life,
when death is at her fingertips.
Share this post with your friends.
