An Heirloom of Love

after bell hooks

Here on my table, we share the memory of our countries,

centuries of recipes stitched into the strands of my hair,

how uncle got the scar, the image of a toddler running into fire

as we sit down for trays spilling with beef suya,

blood that remembers the civil war.

Last night I dreamt I met my grandma

who has been buried for 40 years dressed in a silver silk ankara.

Grandma parted my curls into stanzas, she said carving pain into love is your power,

while she counted my fulani braids like potential futures.

If we talk of future, then let me share this photograph of my father with you

splayed out on a picnic rug, my mother squeezing his soft cheeks.

You could mistake my father for a chastised child if not for his bushy handlebar moustache

beneath a crinkled bulbous nose, the same as my own.

Before I was even born, my family immigrated to the so-called lucky country,

but what luck is there to be found, after you leave all that you know behind?

The olive trees they lay beneath in that photo, burned to the ground by missile fire

no choice but to go forward, letting go of their grief along the way

so they could free their hands to hold up their children.

I understand my parents raised me to be a lawyer so I became a writer, a river.

Metaphor is a gift from my ancestors, my name is inherited from my father,

his legacy lives within the laughter of his daughter.

Knowing I am the grandchild of teachers who looked for answers,

traced palms like psalm excerpts, yoruba child of Jamaica

with no belief in borders, who knew love did not require being martyred.

Speak more to me of love without martyrdom,

for you see, I watched my Baba labour tirelessly for his love,

in a world unkind to the softness of his cheeks,

from greedy white bosses to two-faced brown kin,

each one tearing out their “fair” share from him.

Baba couldn't cut it as a barber like his father, so he became a welder,

his view trimmed down to the small glass window in his helmet,

wielding fire and melding metal to build up the bones

of a city that never made space for him.

I see the lines of my lineage etched into my fingerprint,

a poet who has all the love that has ever existed

within the hardworking women who left scorching villages

for a sunless metropolis. Knowing to live was to leave,

become dreams, perpetual spring.

Knowing spring is a prayer for a new beginning.

I have seen blessings, swayed to the passed down stories

of my body as light walked beside me.

I remember curling up beside my Baba,

counting the skin tags on his neck,

while he talked to me about love,

voice heavy from a day's work and no rest.

Watching Baba work made me worry about the softness of my chest.

Would the world eat me up whole?

I resolved to harden up; tried to not care too much,

but Baba warned me against shutting myself off like a gas valve.

Habibe, when I work, I need to control the flow for the flame

give too much, it’ll burn too hot and you’ll burn with it,

but too low, and you won’t be able to make anything at all.

Let me tell you about how my mother’s courage lit up whole cities,

how she nursed patients who called her a monkey,

yet all day she dreamt of caring for the sick. I carry history behind my eyelids,

the midnight vigils, sleepless night shifts, griot's reciting lyrics. Those anthologies within my skin.

All this ache, all this joy has an origin.