Augusta's Poodle
Ogaga Ifowodo

Excerpts from the book

LIV
Nne. I slept every night near her unfaded hair,
a headrest of soothing black wool.
Mother of the house of love: her eyes burned
their endless wicks for the perpetual
light brighter than the midnight moon.
Above the silver of our zinc roof, the moon
pressed a white udder to quench earth’s
midnight thirst with the light of her milk.
Truths flashed from the depths of her eyes,
rebuking waywardness and indolence
with sharper sting than words or even cane.
All the birds sang in her throat to soothe
the afflicted minutes, break the stranglehold
of grief from the unnameable death
of joy in the stricken house, its walls drunk
with memory and loss, crumbling to the ground.