dear Mum,
and today it’s PM Dawn and then it’s Janet and then it’s more Janet then that specific Fela album and then it’s your beloved P-Square. sometimes i wander into the kitchen, drawn by the echo of your faded pink indoor slippers, glance at the forgotten stew simmering on the stove and look over to you your eyes closed, wrists swinging extended above your head shoulders laughing half turn to meet my gaze beams of sweat resting on your folded upper lip, you point your hands to steal my heart
you say these neighbors are going to KNOW where I’m from today with a pleased defiance
this backyard of immigrant dreams
speaker blasting Ebenezer Obey Iyanla Lágbájá and on
once again you’re encircled
the alaga, the drummers, friends in bright blue purple aso-ebi the brightness stamping the backyard walls weaving around your rose bushes. you dance the decades and decades in this country dressing your children in an inconspicuous corner of Murtala Muhammed to flee and to arrive everything remembered as labored breaths swallow your delight.
“the author’s mother”
UNINTERRUPTED REFUGE
then turn back to that dancing, to that joy
dear Mum,
three families gather
uninterrupted refuge.
the tv is on, endlessly buzzing about the furious snowstorm barreling onto roofs in this overheated Atlanta apartment you remain mostly on the sofa, swaddled by that hulking heather gray blanket bones still frail subtly masked by your em- erald sweater that hangs a little too loosely across your neck your frame so small, past near death but the whisper of death still lingering.
California, Georgia, Tennessee, but Nigeria binds us.
— KEMI ROLE
oh but dear Mum,
the togetherness seems to power your limbs or maybe it’s that damn P-Square song that stays on repeat and then there you are in the midst of a rowdy circle of mostly twenty-somethings
you in the most common of rooms
KEMI ROLE is a writer and poet drawn to ex- plorations of family, grief, migration, and what it means to be present. Kemi has been blessed to spend almost the last twenty years working in spaces building towards racial and gender justice and worker power. Kemi is nourished by beloved family and community and quiet alone time watching the same movies on repeat.
home shopping network humming as backdrop, the warm light overheard peering into the circular glass top of the dining room table that sony tabletop black CD boombox nearby ready to host this dance party of one
that sweet sly smile as you laugh dropping low to the ground
Momz to the ground tho?
it’s the third day of this christmastime visit
there’s a little bit of victory i see.
30
30 in dance SPRING 2023
31
SPRING 2023 in dance
In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
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