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By Madeline Ileleji
A crown on a scarred forehead,
My mother says the hair will cover the scars
Plates in the rack breaking on the floor
My father says, he has had enough of the
Noise
Wide eyes in the dent of his face
He is looking at my mother to tame his
Children
Silence brushing in their lovely faces
They say they made us in the love of God
Barbie dolls and teddy bears are neatly seated
In the corner
My little sisters talking her charm to her
Priced possessions
She’s yelling, shes moving
My father thinks it’s cute
Ask him what he thinks of me
Teenage grown with a running mouth
It ain’t all that cute now
Yet he smiles when I walk pass
And he is proud of the love he made
He thinks I know little of the world
And theres some sense in that
My younger brother is a pocket full
Of tricks
No wonder my mother loves his sun shade
Smile and his cocky laugh
He is a diamond worth of love
A trailblazer in her hourly laugh
Moonlight sparks in my mother’s watermelon eyes
She stares at us in pride
It must have taken a lot of God to make us
For that smile on her face was as pure as grace
Sometimes she forgets the God in her when she yells at all the noise we make
That’s when the mountains crumble
That’s when her eyes are cold and her skin wrinkly
That’s when my father frowns at us and nods his head at her
In the weakling of his eyes he knows
No one handles it like her
For a moment, his fatherly stance is high
And domineering
And all three of us quiet we lay
Backed to a sofa
It doesn’t last a while
My father does not have it as good as my mother
Then a thing happens in my mother’s face
And when she smiles
We are up at it again with all the voices in the house
And my father, my father, gently and slowly
Tugs my mother in his arms
For the love of it, it’s all perfect and messy
And all the voices in the house roar day
And night until all the children grow old
