How Not to Disappear by Victoria Adukwei Bulley

How Not to Disappear

 

“I told a police officer that my son was missing, please help me find him, and she said: ‘If you can’t find your son, how do you expect police officers to find your son for you?’”

 

Who would guess the prayers you’ll say

walking home at night, crossing streets you know

too well were never yours to claim. All the promises

you’ll make about what you’ll do with your life

should you make it to the warm indoors,

the soft & grateful bed. God, you’ll say, below your breath,

let no strange man put hands on me, let the dark

not drape this body on terms other than its own;

speed me to the door, let the first key be the right one;

the mechanism oiled & easy. & should I fail, you’ll say

in any of this, let me have spoken to no one lately

about bad days, hard times, or worse have written

a poem or two about them, to be found when your belongings

are thumbed through, finally; too late. Please, God, you’ll say,

one more time, deliver me home to my known life, seen

& loved by those to whom it’s always mattered; borne & fed

by a lover & others who, like you, already know how

(& how not) to disappear, unable to forget

the way they spoke to that boy’s mother.