They call you dead who do not know you live
behind eyelids,
inside too-long-unopened drawers,
on some postcard lost enroute,
tucked into a postman’s back pocket.
One afternoon, I found you tangled in lint
a true resurrection
a single thread of fine hair, welcomed back
after facing Jonah’s waters and the baptism of life.
They call you dead who do not understand
who cannot see your blood and bones walking in me,
attuned to my every step.
I wear your skin, younger, less sun-spotted, one shade too pale
as your eyes,
peering through my eyes,
can see
and still recognise its history,
the feeling of a babe against a breast
a hand inside a hand inside another hand
fingers pricked, burned, crushed between
doors,
flipping pages, untangling hard-to-rid locks
I’m that child crying, not knowing that hurt meant love
in front of a mother’s vanity.
Photography by José Alberto Díaz Ruiz // Dev/Scan at Páramo
Paulina Odeth enjoys reading and writing about food, migration, and practices surrounding death and dying around the globe. Her work has previously appeared in Rethinking Refugees, Lazy Women and Everything is Political.