Longlisted/Shortlisted Poem: “The Loss of God”
ARIYO FERANMI is a Nigerian storyteller and the author of the chapbook I Watch You Disappear, published by the African Poetry Book Fund and Akashic Books.
The Loss of God
It is hard to tell when exactly my mother’s eyes grew tired of watching God;
if her disbelief came in small doses, trickling in like blood through a nicked venule—
or if it came in a torrent like a gust of water thumping through a crack
in the wall of a dam, dissolving a small town nearby in one night.
It might have been sometime
between when she repeated litanies into meaninglessness
and when pages of holy books were forced through her lips.
It might have been something about the figurines of the saints before which she worshiped—
The Virgin, especially, her blessed hands trapped in stony wait.
You see, if a virgin-birth is what it takes to become blessed among all women;
if this is the best that is offered, then of course, it is enough reason to give up belief.
It is hard to tell if my mother’s apostasy might have come from reading
Chekhov or watching a gnostic dissect John’s Apocryphon on YouTube at night.
Or if it is because she can no longer stomach the exquisite terror of pretending
to adore yet another person who took so much from her and never even bothered to explain why
It is hard to know if her faith is dead or just in crisis;
if she is still waiting, for a sign or some grand revelation:
a burning, not-burning bush in the wilderness, wet fleece on a dry ground or the converse,
a miracle the scale of Lazarus come forth! Come forth