The Shadow of Nothing – Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

I wonder why my appetite for mosquitoes

grows after every bout of malaria;

my sister says she munched bees in the nest

after being stung by angry bees,

I think I envy her,

after all, it's nothing as bitter and bloody

as a fleshless, tasteless anopheles mosquito,

for whom honey is a desert poison

and the devil is in every little sweetness;

It's amazing how we become blood

by sucking blood,

water by gulping water;

I am my father's water and blood,

though I leave no trace, no delineation.

Then I know nothing comes from me,

a nonentity, a camouflage,

the shadow of that which is

and the substance of that which is not.

Tell me, please, am I illegitimate?

---

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah lives in the United Kingdom with his family. His poems have been published and will soon be published in Strange Horizons, Atticus Review, The Cortland Review, Space and Time Magazine, The Pierian and elsewhere. He is a winner of the Voices of Lincoln Poetry Contest 2022 and a finalist of the African Diaspora Award 2023. He has recently been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.