My Father’s Son And The Bees
I am the boy my father prayed to be,
the son his own father never stayed to see—
the one who fled when death drew lines
between two communities, as if a border could
contain it.
He wanted me found in everything he did,
even when his own safety was a fragile guess,
and mine, a hope he couldn’t name.
When I think of him I see a man
who missed his own childhood and missed his
children,
who wanted, perhaps, to be held
as he held us.
Once, I watched him. We went to gather wood
in a farmstead, not knowing the dry grass
had become a school for a swarm.
At his first cut, they rose.
They came for him stinging,
leaving him more dead than alive—
more like a child needing care
than the man who gave it.
And I still wonder:
how much emptiness did he carry,
how much silence,
until the day he was taken from us?
John Chinaka Onyeche is a Nigerian writer based in Port Harcourt, and a historian from Etche in Rivers State. While he is dedicated to ensuring that the full scope of history is accurately represented, John now writes about family, broken home, the effect on its victims, and survival. His writing can be found in various journals, including York Literary Review, McNeese Review, Pier Review, Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival Anthology, Tilted House Journal, The Shallow Tales Review, Akewi Magazine, and Brittle Paper, etc. He is a Best of Net/Pushcart nominee respectively. You can connect with him on X/Twitter @Apostlejohnchin
