In my mother’s house, a painting on the wall is God’s forgotten commandments. There is no miracle in filtering
yourself on Snapchat or paraphrasing your clan’s totem in a Whatsapp status.

To love your body, you’ve to learn to embrace the wind when you go nude before your partner’s eyes.  My mother
had told me, that, a woman’s body is a dissolved temple suffering dislocation on God’s tongue.

That when thunder strikes, she folds heavenwards. And when bodies collide, she finds peace on bended knees: my
darling, you’re all I’ve wanted to gain from selling this braid to the moon.

In my mother’s house, when a husband finds life in his wife’s eyes, he pours libation at the centre of the family house: of
all the margins that divide where the gods live, your body is the idol to be worshiped after baptism.

On every sundown, a ripe child tries traveling beyond the stretch of our arms. We pour onto its body a calabash full of
ash — if it’s a female. We christen its body with concoction — if it’s a male. Then we gather their abstracted olfactory
nerves mid-air & summon the spirits in the compound house musing a ritual: you, who shall bring us ornaments — sojourn
well. you, who shall bring us opulence — may eggs visit your womb.

In my mother’s house, every male child is every woman’s son & every female child is every woman’s daughter.  For in this
house, blood superintends & tradition is never forsaken.