In the time it takes me to write this sentence,

my ­ mum must have lost her capacity to breathe.

Quick and unexpected, her passing.

Here one day and then gone the next.

I’m keeping close to the bone as the wound is raw,

27 years later.

Up until now, there’s been a balance –

the years I had her with me versus the years without.

Loss constitutes a black mother’s life, but what about their daughters?

Mourning in the early morning, when the news found me,

sleepless and fearful, until this Autumn when I will have to learn

how to navigate this life beyond without.

Loss splits time into the before and after.

A rupture fires the heart, triggers

the already-always -thereness of loss,

the always-already-thereness of the ghosts

we carry with us into our many battles

and violent (work)spaces.