(For Rev.-Col. Eugene Boapea Boamah Sintim[-Brown], Aka Kwaku Brown,
Retired Chaplain-General of the Ghana Armed Forces, 1941-2017)
Those dirty
little secrets
we shared
which made you
all too human
and endeared me
to you
the most…
those cigarette packs
you sent me
to buy
for you
on the sly,
lest Auntie Bea
should find out
and confine you
to the doghouse,
catch you
in the act
and crush them
and discard them
in the refuse
bin,
and perhaps
even deliver you
a slap
or two
out of
earshot –
that would be
good money
flushed down
the drain,
her fingermarks
on your cheeks;
you always found
creative ways
to smoke
in one of
the empty rooms
without
being caught,
I would pluck
a green orange
leaf or two
which you chewed
like cud
after a smoke
to muff up
the smell…
the room was
still heavy
with the hint
all right,
but your breath
stuck by
the lie
and we both
stuck by
the line…
once
or twice
when you two
had a spat,
you spent
the night out
in an old
sweetheart’s pad
and bid us
tell a different
tale which was
at once bizarre
and wickedly fun…
for me
any chance
to lay one
on Auntie Bea
was all the more
divinely
fun,
a tit
for tat;
there were often
too many tits
for me
to tat
against her –
the least
fun part
was when I had
to haul in
those little chicks
for you,
set up
the pad
with lantern light
to boot,
my lantern light,
of course,
which meant
I had to sleep
in darkness
as thick as
hell…
then shadow her
stealthily through
the patio in,
lest Grandpa Sintim
caught onto this
catty game of
hide-and-fuck…
eventually,
though,
this delicious sin
would catch up
with you
in the form
and shape of
Maame Florence,
that pretty child
who most
resembled you –
I would later
learn,
with disappointment,
you had tried
to deny
this sweetest
of crimes
which bore
your most striking
imprint,
man and his
twin sib sis
in the mirror
that nearly got you
disrobed…
funny
to say this,
but you were
the tamest
of all six
of you,
each and every
one of whom
fathered a child
outside
your conjugal
web,
all six of them
daughters,
too,
some karmic
reprisal,
it seemed;
I chose
to do it
backwards
and ended up
in a ditch,
but
it saved me
a lot of debt
I could have owed
but joyfully
dodged,
I won’t blow
for another
to bite
oh,
hell
no…
when I got married
whose sacred rites
you had graciously
and gracefully
performed,
in absentia,
we spoke
by phone
and you heartily
teased all I had
done was
license
to make hay
twenty-four-seven,
which was rather
funny ’cause here
in America,
twenty-four-seven
is exactly
what you can’t
have if you’re
dumb enough
to license
and register it
for twenty-four-seven…
seven over
twenty-four
maybe,
but twenty-four
seven,
must be off
your rockers…
Wofa,
don’t you see
the world
can be funny
sometimes,
funny
like this
daydream
I just had
in which
you were telling me
all these funny jokes
about the women
at your new place
which is almost
exactly like
your old one,
except
everybody
is bloody new
like the newly-
born…
7/16/17
(RIP)