Postscript

By Majekodunmi Ebhohon

ONE day,
tomorrow will begin
without me.

The kettle will still hum
on someone’s stove.
A bus will cough awake
in the pale morning.
And the sun…
the sun will rise
as if it has never
missed a theorist.

My shoes will remember
the shape of my feet
long after I am no longer there
to fill them.

Dust will settle
where I once argued with time.
And the rooms I knew
will soften my absence
into something almost ordinary.

Someone will laugh
where I once stood serious.
Someone will pass my shadow
without knowing
it had a voice.

And the things I thought urgent
will loosen their grip
on the day.

And yet—

if anything of me
refuses to go,
let it not be the body,
nor the fragile echo
of a face.

But that somewhere,
in a word I left behind,
in a kindness I did not delay,
in a thought I seed
in another’s mind—

a small, stubborn light
continues,

unaware
that I am gone.