Hafizah Geter was born in Zaria, Nigeria, and received her BA in English and economics from Clemson University and her MFA in poetry from Columbia College Chicago. Geter’s poems have appeared in Boston Review, Narrative Magazine, The New Yorker, and Tin House, among others. A Cave Canem fellow and the recipient of a 2012 Amy Award from Poets & Writers, Geter serves on the board of VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts and works as an editor at Little A and Day One from Amazon Publishing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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The Widower
Five winters in a row, my father knuckles
the trunk of his backyard pine
like he’s testing a watermelon.
He scolds smooth patches
where bark won’t grow,
breaks branches
to find them hollow.
He inhales deeply
and the pine tree has lost
even its scent. He grieves
in trees— my father, the backyard
forest king, the humble
king. The dragging his scepter
through the darkness king.
The wind splits him into shivers.
Rivers of stars
don him like a crown. My king
who won’t lay his tenderness down
trembles into the black
unable to stop
his kingdom from dying.
I have failed to quiet
the animal inside him.
If only I would
take his hand.
This man weeping
in the cold,
how quickly I turn
from him.
Copyright © 2017 by Hafizah Geter. “The Widower” originally appeared in Court Green. Reprinted with permission of the author.
Copyright © 2017 by Hafizah Geter. “The Widower” originally appeared in Court Green. Reprinted with permission of the author.
Hafizah Geter
Hafizah Geter was born in Zaria, Nigeria, and received her BA in English and economics from Clemson University and her MFA in poetry from Columbia College Chicago.