[January 2026, Issue 47] Sundays Taste Like Expired Memories, Busari Shukura Oyeronke

The sky bruises peach, then pewter,
as if heaven itself forgot the recipe for light.
The kettle moans like a widow dressing
for a funeral no one will attend.
She bites into a bread left too long,
its crust whispering a long gone mildew.
The jam stares back, clotted, wine-dark,
like a clot in the brain of time.
The chairs remain polite and empty,
holding a grief where laughter once sat,
and the curtains flutter with the breath
of those who left.
She pours milk into tea,
watching it curdle like hope―
slowly and quietly…
A hymn plays two blocks away,
but her ears filter only the sorrow.
She tongues a name she no longer believes in
and swallows it like communion.
Sundays here smell of attic dust,
of photographs swollen with forgetting,
of grief disguised as routine.
And when the clock coughs noon,
she lights a candle for no one,
and lets the wax forget to harden.