His brother demanded the rites,
to send Kitofa’s spirit hunting
the hands that killed him.
The church talked him down.

But still in Ikorigho, two decades on,
for another family’s grief, no one filed a report.
No one waited at the station.
They called for Agbadi.

Strand of hair, thumbnail clippings,
taken from the dead as part of the rite.
Before invoking the spirit, mere wood,
pieces nailed and tied in a ladder-frame,
now heavy as timber under the spirit.

Four men, bent beneath the weight,
swung through the crowd.
The frame hunting like a bird,
struck one woman into the dirt.
Nearby, her husband stood, the dead child’s kin,
one of the voices that called the wood to speak.

The dead could now be laid to rest.
Eight years old, I watched from the edge
as she rose, returning home,
with the dead boy’s name
marked at every door she passed.

Chris Okunnuwa is a Nigerian-born poet and writer based in Manchester, UK. His
poetry explores heritage, diaspora life and belonging, drawing on his Ilaje heritage and
experiences between Nigeria and Britain.