KHADRO MOHAMED
seasonal greetings
//
i. winter
the rains came in mid-morning. non-stop.
like a typhoon. i’d never seen the skies so
grey & heavy. the breeze is cold & like a
ghost touch, it slides past the bridge of my
nose. thank god i can still see through the
thick haze collecting like water droplets around me.
ii. autumn
i have a confession to make:
that in the foliage of the dead autumn leaves,
piled high on the corner of an empty street i
still see you, smiling through the cracks.
pretending the sky isn’t falling.
iii. spring
sometimes i wonder if my happiness has just
forgotten her way home, caught up in
the middle of the changing rose colours,
lying flat on her back in a white coloured field
& sometimes, i even wonder about you & all that
you’ve left behind to fill this gaping hole still sleeping
in your chest.
iv. summer
even though it’s late afternoon the sky remains so vast
& blue I’m afraid it’ll swallow me whole.
nostalgia
//
1
for some reason, i can still say the world ‘sleep’ in Swahili. i’m not sure why this
one stuck with me for so long. i sometimes wonder if it’s the way the word feels in
my mouth that has made it stick. perhaps there are curves somewhere in its letters
that have managed to cling to the loose corners of my tongue.
2
when i was younger
my brother decided to grow his hair out
in a silent rebellion
he grew an afro one winter
it towered over his head, brushed the
tips of his shoulders & bloomed like
a spring iris at the tips. & in the mornings,
when the light trickled in through an
open window, like a fishnet,
his brittle ringlets would catch the tiny
rays of sun in golden pockets.
3
sometimes, when he thinks i am not looking, my dad draws with his index finger in
the sand, telling stories of a faraway place that i never quite knew. i know it’s
selfish, but i’m jealous of his nostalgia. the way it’s coloured his skin so beautiful.
the way it’s created such beautiful & intricate dips in his forehead. maybe there are
more stories, hiding in the folds, waiting for a perfect moment to envelop us both.
Listen to Khadro Mohamed read ‘seasonal greetings’ and ‘nostalgia’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Khadro Mohamed is a poet from Wellington. Her work has appeared in Starling Magazine, The Poetry Shelf, The Spinoff and more. Her latest body of work, We’re All Made of Lightning, can be found where all good books are sold across the motu.