Someone once asked why
My mother’s portrait guards the doorway.
“Doesn’t it stop you from healing?”
Heal?
From what?
Death is not a favorite pair of shoes you lose
And expect to replace after a few days.
It is a bridge cut in two:
The crossing you once counted on
Crumbles into shadow; you can never return
To the land you once occupied.
You do not recover from a wound
That bleeds when you breathe.
If my mother now lives only in memory,
I will press her smile into the world’s palms
Until even strangers carry it like prayer.
Nosawema is a Nigerian poet and biochemistry student. Her writing engages themes of family, loss, and the sacredness of ordinary life. She finds inspiration in news, memory, and conversation, and her work seeks to bridge the personal with the universal.
