The World is an Open Wound

A poem by Pacella Chukwuma-Eke

with no deadline for healing.

My eyes, a hopeless carnivore,

keeps devouring skins barbecued

by war flames.

We do not mourn satisfaction

in a parallel universe. A woman

by the roadside pours her grief

into a stained-blue plastic cup and feeds

her children with it.

They are already familiar with substituting meals

for their mother’s tears.

Before the day runs into itself, my mother

unwraps her hands to display the same cup,

stained with blue and a bitter purpose.

Our guts are rivers.

Still, I pray our destinies stay hidden in an ark.

---

Pacella Chukwuma-Eke is the author of Love in its Bliss and Sins, and “The Apocalypse.” She is the winner of the Utopia Award (Poetry Category), SODF, Cradle Poetry Contest, and others. She is currently a consecutive slam-champion, a Sundress Best of the Nets Nominee, and a two-time Pushcart Nominee. Pacella has her works published in several literary magazines including Eunoia, Roughcut press, Strange Horizons, Lolwe, Poetry columnnnd, and others.

Image:

Cup by Annie Spratt