On the marble floor,
a sequin from the gala
lies beside a discarded draft
of the minority opinion.
My mop is a blind tongue
licking the temple clean.
I empty all the bins.
In the one from Chamber Three,
a coffee cup, a spent lozenge,
and six pages of transcript
where the word mass grave
appears fourteen times.
The night-shift guard
nods from his hive of screens.
He sees the ghosts I push
with my yellow bucket.
They are not his business.
His business is the living,
the ones with badges.
Beside the shredder’s mouth,
I found a torn photograph
of the Malaysian counsel upstairs,
hands clutching
the folds of her gown,
a quiet struggle
to keep herself whole.
I know the sound justice makes
when it leaves a room:
the exhale of leather chairs,
the click of a million euros
in locks. I hear the voices
taped to the acoustic panels;
a woman naming names
in a language my mother spoke.
I dust the bench where they sat.
The wood drinks the polish
and gives back only
my face, dark and swirling.
At dawn,
the recyclers come for the paper.
I think of the words dissolving,
command responsibility & proportionality
becoming a grey mush,
a new blank page
waiting for the morning memo,
for the next indictment,
for the next gala’s invitations
to be printed upon.
I do not read the documents.
I touch only their shells.
My fingerprints are on everything;
small, perfect whorls
none will lift for evidence.
I turn the key in the great door.
Behind me, the hall of voices
hums in the air-conditioning dark.
Ahead,
the bicycle path,
the rain, my city,
which asks me nothing
of what I have cleaned,
and to which I return,
carrying nothing
but the smell of lemon
and the faint, metallic taste
of a word I will never say,
a word that sits in the bin
of my throat,
untranslated,
waiting for collection.
Majekodunmi O. Ebhohon is a Nigerian poet and playwright. He is the author of ‘The Great Delusion’, winner of the ANA Prize for Drama, 2025. He writes from Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria.
He can be reached via +234 (0) 9139208624, sankara101010@gmail.com
