There Is No Scar, Only Absence - Saddiq Dzukogi

[Larry Robinson]

There Is No Scar, Only Absence

After Assar, I sit on the tail end
of our house where birds nest
on a lemon tree. A snake

bunches half its body on a height,
while the rest creeps along a branch,
niggling its head sluggishly

into a nest, and as the yard grows quiet,
feasts on newly laid eggs. In my hands
a thread goes into another thread,

until a blanket grows out of my crochet
and rests on my lap. Night, like my blanket,
covers what light remains

of the day. I reach deep
into my throat and say a prayer;

of the many things that can kill me
death is not one of them. However,
the earth is the snake that will

consume me like an egg.
I’ll live longer than the silence a corpse
leaves behind.

Nothing of the eggs remains.
But, as for me, my stories will linger

like a neckbone
that can withstand a hangman’s noose.
Tomorrow, when mother bird returns,

I’ll repeat my wife’s mantra;
a scar is not a flaw, just a story
that sticks to our skin.

     - Saddiq Dzukogi



"Be joyful though you have considered all the facts."
    - Wendell Berry