Prosper C Ìféányí

Family Truck

We were listening to the forest, and trees,
        and gumps serenading past us, in that

blanch of waning imagery, like they were never
       there. Father's dead feet lodged on the breaks 

but not too firmly. Mother's face, a concave
        vault of dreaminess. The silence crackling 

in our bones, our ears, our tongues, was brewing
        fast. Unfurling, as the tyres screeched atop 

coal tars and cairn fragments. An omen? I don't
     know. But the spaces in-between reminded me

of a man trying to fit himself into the crevice of a
        wall. I am fast becoming a memory to my 

parents. The feeling is quaint with every blemish
        that comes with it. Today, I am lavender in 

my father's arms, tomorrow I am pulp. I don't
       even know what that means. When I close 

my eyes, I imagine I am stowed in the pocket of
       the azure. Somewhere my mother's voice

 cannot find me; somewhere the pastry scent of
     dough doesn't call me home. For I have eloped 

in more ways than one to find myself dancing to
      the susurrus of hunger which leads me back 

to my mother's kitchen. Twice, I had my things on
     me: brush, comb, and rag doll, sitting through 

bleak midwinter. Humming la di da to every
     stranger who knew me by my darkness. Bright 

colourful darkness. A road no one will re-take.
     Perhaps, also, the r(h)ope tethering me from 

a tumbling over. At this hour, all I want is a boy's
     symphony. All I want is to cram my ears with 

the buds of my index fingers. To bar myself from
     too much memory this trip has bestowed.

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Prosper C Ìféányí is a poet, essayist and short story writer. An alum of Khōréō Magazine, his works are featured or forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, New Delta Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Parentheses Journal, Identity Theory, Caret and elsewhere.