These Hands

that scooped him up, they fluttered and sobbed
We cradled his corpse, fingers trembling leaves

We cradled his corpse, fingers trembling leaves
No one blamed the absent breeze and oven heat

No fainting in absent breeze or oven heat
Where does grief live in this place that cooks our dead

How our grief smokes in this place that cooks our dead
How dad lies like an offering on the pyre

Oh dad you are an offering on wood pyre
Oh piled wood, father’s bones, you burn you burn

Oh piled wood, father’s bones, you burn you burn
Oh skin, suit, bones, smouldering in crackling heat

Oh skin, suit, bone, smouldering in crackling heat
As hands that scooped you up, trembled and sobbed.

Manchester Metropolitan University lecturer, cofounded Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. Her pamphlet Breadfruit received a Poetry Society recommendation, and her collection Pepper Seed was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature and the Seamus Heaney Centre 2014 prize. She was awarded the Cholmondeley Award (2019) for outstanding contribution to poetry. She is the first woman to win the Forward Prize for Best Single poem twice: The Little Miracles (2020) and Libation (2023).