Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.

So far, what I have  

is you, Dad, migrating  

from sitting room, bottom right-hand 

side of the house, two floors skywards 

to the loft, then back earthbound 

to catch signal  

               Hello! 

        onouhi, onouhi? 

               can you hear me? 

And though my sides split and 

leak laughs onto the internet 

at this telecom farce, I will know 

what that phrase means 

for what’s left of my life. 

And then you, Mum, downstairs 

with a more local transmission, 

phone warm at your cheeks’ 

clan marks, now transmitters 

breathing  

          ohh wohyémi 

               I am well. 

                    God is good  

or you, Mum, with me  

on the floor of the kitchen, 

my kneecap a bar of soap ablaze, 

my mouth a chimney of howl,  

and your  

          kpo… kpo… 

conjured to end pain 

unspill milk, or unspool thread 

tied too tautly around a bale  

of braided hair. 

So far, my menagerie of terms  

is small fragment, speck, found object 

sound, word and phonic 

but I keep it.  

Collect, collect, collate 

and conceal it – under head and pillow 

just as Grandma caches money 

in case she ever needs it. 

In case it one day grows.