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When you died
• When you died
May 25, 2025
by DACIOUS KASOKA
When you died
after Akpa Arinzechukwu
for Chilufya
We stood decked out on the front porch of the
cathedral, the small worlds in us enlarging,
absorbed in Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, sang
with the slowness of an origami bird.
Lusaka was a burning place, wisps of
smoke spiralling out of memory’s hole.
On Sundays Hassan would light a small fire
in the backyard. And read us poems in Arabic.
We kept you alive in most poems, except as
a memory swallowed up in thin air,
or a bird dying on a thorn littered
earth, but still beautiful. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DACIOUS KASOKA is an economist, poet, writer, and machine learning engineer. A 2023 Best of the Net nominee, his writings have been published and are forthcoming in World Voices Magazine, Writers Space Africa Magazine, Agape Review, Arts Lounge Magazine, The Kalahari Review, Spillwords Press, OBBLT Review, The Shallow Tales Review, News Diggers newspaper, and elsewhere. When he’s not writing, he’s deeply immersed in reading or coding.
*Image by preillumination seth on unsplash
