my aunty tells me
not to worry / put it to prayer
keep working hard / your father
lives his life / for us
stresses our stresses / for us
don’t eat white rice / don’t eat late at night
before she was / mature in age
my aunt once wished / she was born
in outside world / somewhere
united / like those states or kingdom
but now she says / thank God
she was born /where she was born
my aunty tells me
my family / has an okra affinity
she questions people / who don’t like okra
if you don’t like okra / you are lost
my aunt / used to tell my mom
stop eating okra soup / and pepper soup
because when your enemy finds out
they will know how to strike
but she tells me
what you
want to eat
just eat it
when you want to eat
just eat
what gentry people will buy
we don’t want
but if we want it
we will buy it
some people bound to rich
some people bound to poor
but everything will be fine
for me / and my family
but that’s life though
that’s really really really life
and some people will go mad
because of it
but you
you gotta know
that’s life / you must not go mad
you will be fine / you will be shine
sometimes you wish you live in this world forever,
everyone wishes to grow old
but the die do not come like that
my sister / your mother came to end like that
when the die came
but that’s life
she was very very lovely
she would connect phone calls
three ways and then start snoring over the phone
sata? sata? are you sleep?
and when she doesn’t answer
i will cut the phone
my aunty tells me
she questions
why people,
when caught,
will never admit
that they are sleeping?
i tell her / i question
the same thing.
