SQN - Sine Qua Non - Issue Two - Journal - Page 37
SINE QUA NON
FIRST PLACE WINNER — POETRY
Nnamdi Ndiolo
Marvellous Igwe
Mea Maxima Culpa
Dispossessed
What else is memory if not a Jordan seething with grief?
Like a leper drunk on the scent of a miracle, I stagger into mine—
pliant as the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation. My eyes exhume
my teenage hands reaching through memory9s obsidian veil. I ond
Corpus Christi in another boy & my father9s belt blesses my body thus:
|is is the mark of my wrath, wrought for the heft of your transgression.
Wear this in memory of me. My body obeys: Behold the handmaid of the rod.
Be it done unto me according to your word. I probe my marrow for melody,
ond only misery nedging where the sun refuses to touch. When grief builds
its basilica in your bones, what melody can your marrow muster?
Father9s fury wears the face of the Decalogue9s orst command. I searched
for God where I was taught: transubstantiation, a candle9s aroused tongue, &
my renection trembling on a river9s skin. But Leviticus keeps kindling it's ore—
Because boys in love are bombs & Proverbs are short for petrol verbs.
Forgive me—I didn't know the price of my faith was my freedom, pawned
like Mother9s coral beads. Even Isaac turned heretic after Abraham measured
his neck against the blade of belief. I need the sun spilling across my face again.
I hope the morning breaks before I do. I swear, I am only a servant of love.
All I want is for Father to touch me gently. All the church wants is to torch me—
that belt celebrating Eucharist upon my back. What else is the Bible but a ballroom
of Pharisees shouting: |e category is Burn! Burn! Burn! Witness my transoguration:
desire9s disciple, animal refusing the leash. Heaven-hounded heathen. Blind spot
in God9s experiment. I kneel before my new god9s tabernacle to receive unholy
communion. Mea culpa. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. I cup his nakedness—
veined cedar in my trembling altar-boy hands. |e branches in my thighs ignite,
& ignite, & ignite. My father denies me thrice. & God nods.
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|e Eve. |e Adam of no Eden. |e sky
made of tarpaulin. It was always tarpaulin.
Here, in this desert, there was no other thing
to be inherited. Not like this had been from
the beginning. Not like there wasn't a
garden we once called home. Not like the
news hadn't grown more monstrous each
week. More hungry. Each morning another
village reduced to ashes. Each morning,
bones. Slowly, it grew closer to the heart.
|e smoke. Till you looked outside and
it was your village on ore. Till you learned
that life could be how swift your limbs
could nee. Could be how fast your head
could dodge the machete. |ere was
no mercy in the herdsman9s eyes. No
forgiveness. No rain that could wash the
earth of that blood. |e woman and her
daughter. |e son. In the memory lies
everything we have left behind. In the
memory all I want to leave behind—
and now this endless heat. |is thirst.
|is sky made out of plastic. After he had
killed his brother all Cain could do was
wander, was roam. |ey have killed
my brothers. Have turned me into a
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