The Igbo word for death without the ‘w’ means joy
like striking a match beside a combustible liquid
while standing across the road from a lunatic
cheering for people to die. He speaks in Igbo
so that the word for death rather comes out as joy.
I’m so happy this morning, I have death-joy in my hands, he beams.
This is the way of the world, all the wild ways
is the way of the world. All translations are wild ways,
and if there were a single word in English given to the
beauty of wind streaming through trees, I’d translate that to joy
or death, depending on what first comes to mind.
Maybe in another life, I want to be Borges, brilliant by all standards,
sifting desert sand through the gaps between his fingers and claiming
to have modified the Sahara.
I want to stumble on a pack of re-inventables that I could make mine,
which is why I translate.
I want to awaken in the middle of the night, stuck in the nuanced
originals of words.
Like interpreting bible stories with the same characters
only that in my version, Zaccheus couldn’t see Jesus for he was short
could mean Jesus or Zaccheus was the short one
and people get the story wrong all the time.
And Eve gave the apple unto her husband with her
could indicate Adam’s presence in the temptation scene
and change the whole original sin narrative.
And the prodigal son has chosen to unreturn
how lucky he was to have lived at a time
when he could easily venture out to cemeteries to feel alive
and with no fear of technology finding him.
Chisom Okafor is the author of Winged Witnesses (University of Nebraska Press, 2025) and the chapbook, All I Know About a Heavy Heart Is How to Carry It (Jacar Press, 2025), selected by Jaki Shelton Green as winner of the New Voices Award. He has received nominations for the CAAPP Book Prize, the Brunel African Poetry Prize, the Gerald Kraak Prize, and the Pushcart Prize. He has also received support from the Sundress Academy for the Arts (for the SAFTA residency) and the Commonwealth Foundation. He is presently finishing up his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Alabama, where he is a Graduate Council Fellow. He tweets @chisomokafor16.