1.
Do you remember, my sisters,
those hot nights when we slept
three in a bed beneath a ceiling fan,
blades churning currents of cool air
in the thick stillness?
How tiny our bodies
sprawled across the mattress
at the end of the marble corridor.
The bed was our ocean,
and we, fish, swimming rippled waves.
The bed was our savannah,
and we, beasts, stalking through grasslands.
The bed was our raft
bobbing in the darkness.
Crocodiles lurked below.
Monsters blinked in the hinterlands,
and you were always there beside me, my sisters,
one to my left, one to my right,
sweating sweetly,
breathing sweetly,
beneath the white, whirring fan.
2.
No air for you, my sisters,
who pattered out of Nigeria,
walked the dessert, and boarded
vessels unfit to cross the glistening sea.
Gagging on fuel-ladened water,
you bit and clawed for breath, crushed
beneath the broken deck and
feet of panicked men.
In vests the color of marigolds, you lie
side-by-side, o my sisters,
one to the left, one to the right,
bobbing face downward
at the bottom of a white dinghy
off the coast of Trapani.