Funeral Attire

“Yes,” I say, thinking of how to ask him if it is true that Adesua has died. “Oya nah, come inside,” he says shifting for me to enter. As I enter the house, the first thing I see on the balcony is Adesua’s picture on a small table rounded with flowers! From nowhere, I gather my mind, and I turn to Adesua’s brother and ask him, “So na true say Adesua done die?”

iv

My legs are heavy as I reach our home. It was as if I would not reach at all when I was coming. As I pass through the passage, I can hear my father practicing Osita Osadebe’s Makojo, anyi ga-ebi oo with his piano inside his room. But I go through the passage into my room. With force, I kick out my shoes from my legs and one flies towards the window, the other flies towards my father’s bookshelf, which he kept in our room. And I fall on top of my bed and start crying all the cry that I did not cry in school because I did not believe that Adesua had died. I wish I could still continue not believing it, but her brother couldn’t have lied to me. All these things are going up and down in my mind as I am crying. I look up and I see my father standing next to my bed, and I try to control the cry, but I cannot. I am crying and having hiccups. I know my father hates to see me cry; I know he will rather beat me than console me because for him, a man cannot cry, only women. So I try more to control the crying when I see him. But the more I try to control the cry, the more it comes out. When my father sees that it is not an ordinary cry, he asks me what happened, and I tell him while I am still crying that my friend who is my classmate in school died when I traveled to Lagos for holidays, and I continue crying. For the first time in my life, my father is not telling me to not cry, as a man, but he comes to sit next to me and hugs me. I feel as if they poured cold water on my body even though my father’s body was warm. The surprise made me cry more. “It’s okay. It’s okay my son,” he says. I try again to control my crying, but I cannot control it, and so I keep crying in my father’s arms. If Adesua could die like this, I know now for the first time in my life that anybody can also die without expecting it.

Poetry Abbey Lynne Rays

Dublin, California, USA

There is no funeral in the filter drop down menu. Graduation, wedding guest, covered.

Celebratory life moments are easy. But this is anything but.

No lace or chiffon please. Give me a black shift, something that says, do not look here. I am mourning a life. I do not want spaghetti straps, necklines that sparkle.

Give me something simple, that I won’t grimace in, as my white knuckles grip the church pew. Let this one thing be easy, not another, for which

I am lost, unprepared.