ELEGY

By Christtie Jay 

Who am I to complain? To ask that I be delivered from loss? And love? But father. Please. Child of yours, deliver to me a different kind. Thousands. Millions. But a different kind. A new girl. Her wedding tomorrow. My phone turning desert. My heart frying. From waiting. Smaller loses. That can be survived. I am open to watching. Waiting. To the next five thousand years filling the sea. To. Anything. But morning. But another soul to witness my mourning. Anything. Everything. But here. While. He is there.

PRAYERS FOR THE BRIDE

Busy the music
eating up
the room so
I sweep my hair
behind my ears
to watch.
Tables between
us, I glue my eyes
to you
trying
to spot, yank,
anticipating
when I will need to fly
In to steal
my history
from your future
maybe
give directions,
because lovers
blossom.
Today
you are burning
for one another
tomorrow,
each other.
Close to ten,
your father arrives
to his seat
by my side and
together we watch
you smile smiling
knowing, but hopeful
and hoping
that we are
not your inheritance
so your TV never learns
to fly
or your skull
how to crack
a tile
In two.
He is changed now
he says, and sorry.
Swears it is possible,
that your curtains
go years without kissing
the butt of the maid,
swears, his new marriage
Is this. Meaning
all I have known,
all I have ever told you
are lies
I am sorry.
In sixty years
you will sleep
and wake
to his breath
in your hair
amen.
BIO:

Christtie Jay is a Nigerian writer and lawyer.