Fiction: Ocean of Bone
By Majekodunmi Oseriemen Ebhohon
THE sea does not keep a record,
but the mothers do.
In a house on Calle San Miguel,
a woman folds a shirt that no one will wear.
The collar is starched to a sharp, white edge—
a habit she cannot break,
like setting the table for a son
whose ship came back without him.
She does not light a candle.
She lights three.
One for the body that stayed in the Cuito sand,
one for the fever that took him in a white tent
with a needle still in his arm,
and one for the space between her ribs
where his name still echoes
like a coin dropped down a dry well.
The neighbours bring black beans
and wordless faces.
They do not say lo siento.
They say está aquí
pointing not to heaven
but to the crack in the living room floor,
the loose thread on the armchair,
the way the kettle whistles exactly as it did
when he used to lean against the stove
with his boots still muddy from the plantation.
* This poem is dedicated to the Cuban mothers whose sons crossed the ocean to the earth of Cuito Cuanavale, Namibia, Mozambique and other African battlefields, where they stood beside Africans against apartheid and imperialism. Forever in our hearts
