photo by Alex Lear

On Visiting My Ex-Wife Of 16 Years

After Her Third Brain Tumor Operation

1.

they opened your head

to clear the brush growth from your brain

they dug into your skull

to save you

you never doubted your survival

like your name you were ready

stronger than suffering, we shall overcome

evidently your new favorite song

now you re-arrange yourself: hand, heart

head singing together

you construct a new nation

from the older bones

the distant memories and flesh

that refuses to surrender

despair will not dine

on your soul

your will to live is your candle

illuminating whatever dark

chance and circumstance conspired

to descend upon you

your flame rides through those storms

occasionally flickering but ultimately always strong

2.

for a third time you are learning yourself

tasting anew everything you do, motions

you formerly subconsciously made

now require a conscious kick-start

something as simple as walking

can no longer easily be taken for granted

who really remembers tumbling as a baby

people smiling and encouraging you “get up,

get up. you can do it” and embracing you

when you did it—the different sounds

that came out of one’s mouth learning to talk

the different items put into one’s mouth

learning to taste—who remembers

the struggle to learn how to be who we are?

3.

and so to visit you

in these momentous moments

when regardless of what we see before us

the snapshots inside of us are stronger, more

potent indices, emotional spurs that prod us

i can never forget when you…

do you remember when we…

was yesterday really that long ago

how we have aged

thrown into the sharpest silhouette 

as memories pirouette

on today’s stage

so

what now? you on one shore

i on another, separated by a river of years

so much water flowing under

so many bridges

what now?

i wave to you from a distant shore

my hand is familiar

my touch is long ago

it hurts to sit in a small room

and be so distant from one who was so close

and so i shake off the cloak of sentimentality

and leave

aware at the back of my mind

that the simple act of saying goodbye

—or more precisely, “tutaonana”

those swahili syllables we taught our children

to recite, not goodbye but we will see each other again

we will see each other again

and the question descends the staircase

with me: when?

that query’s younger sibling

innocently posing the more brutal interrogation

“why—do you really want to go through this again?”

4.

by happenstance

i saw gumbi the other day

she asked had i seen you

this was before my visit

i said no

and told her about other issues, other people

close friends literally dying

she shooed away those words

with a curt and cutting response

like they were a fly or an annoying mosquito

ain’t none of them

the mother of yall children

5.

and so it goes

trying to make a whole life

out of disparate pieces

parts of a whole puzzle

that do not interlock

my life is a mosaic

full of jagged interruptions

and tayari you are

in both substance and shadow

touching even

when you can only haltingly move

your right hand

—kalamu ya salaam