It Has Been Three Days Poem by Padmore Enyonam Agbemabiese

three days have passed
since the coming of death
into the village we call with love
in the days of the savanna rains

it is three days now
since I walked back into memory
went over everything we’ve said to one another
everything in the years when we didn’t speak
those days I carried calabashes of dead palm wine
and red blood blobs fell on every song

it is three days now since I tossed in the pail
those smiles we carried with the soup of gritty tears
and I’m almost wordless

I went back to those days
when we walked proudly these lanes
picked up fragmented pictures
of when we danced towards each other with arms stretched
to embrace and embrace and embrace
and I gathered tears we wept while we hugged

I remember the night we died
and the pieces of words flying around
silently like wire
I felt the completeness of loss
carried the absence without a smile

it has been three long dead days
when the rains in the savanna lost their dance
yet what was is still there
yet we’ve walked this path
moved past each other by the coffee shop
without looking into each other’s eyes