By Ambrose Massaquoi

Missing you, our

Neighbor, who wears blue skies

70s shirts, asked me

When is she coming home?

In our tenement

Yard of howling

Dogs & generators

Locked in lonely iron

Cages, I was close to stone

Deaf.

I see the rain….

I think it is going to fall.

That was

Me, mentioning

The menacing clouds

Me, motioning

His busy body along.

Long after

He'd hurried out

Our unhinged gate

I lingered like

Ginger, freshly

Juiced, in our kitchen.

Then blended your absence

With red pepper &

Onions for shared

Memories of

Goat soup

Still steaming hot on

My tongue

Still ringing in

My ears.

My eyes

My nares

Still pouring

Rain.

Ambrose Massaquoi is a Sierra Leonean writer and author of Along the Peal of Drums. He has also been published in The Iowa Review, Kalashnikov in the Sun, Leoneathology and elsewhere. Massaquoi is an alumnus of University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. He currently lives in Lagos, Nigeria.