Girlchild,
I bought the pots and pans on my own
with no one at the register.
At home with no one to register
I was alone, the groceries spoiled.
I was alone as the groceries spoiled,
greened and moldered. My mother called once.
Once, I heard her maiden name called,
strange, and furtive like another life,
pressing between another life and another life,
women en masse, slick-backed fish in a silver sea.
Except I am a gulf, split-lipped from the silver sea.
The distance makes love an apparatus, harnessed
with no one. At the register,
I bought the pots and pans on my own.
Claudia Owusu (https://www.claudiaowusu.com/about) is a Ghana girl through and through. As a writer and filmmaker, her work divulges the nuance of Black girlhood through a personal and collective lens. Her writing is featured or is forthcoming in The Offing, Chestnut Review, Ninth Letter, Bellingham Review, and elsewhere. Her films have screened internationally at Aesthetica, the New York African Film Festival, Urbanworld, and Blackstar Fest. She is the author of the chapbook, “In These Bones I am Shifting” from Akashic Books. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from The Ohio State University.
P.S.
Her favorite song, if she had to choose, is “Binz” by Solange.
