The only picture I have of father,
is a cut out of a woman in lion’s mane with the sun obscuring her face.

When they released him to return to us, we had to beat the mountain with hunting dogs and whistles to retrieve his voice from the noose, vines, gunfire, and oaths.

Mother left him raw meat and breast milk all over the compound, trying to entice his soul from the raging wars alive only to him.

When sister accidentally brought his voice home with a bundle of wet wood from the Mau forest, we beat it to death.

Mother smashed its head right in, with her tired left hand.

He spent the rest of his days in a shuka, spitting into the fire with an army of black ants gnawing him back into the land.

 

Photo by Harshil Gudka on Unsplash