GLORIA OGO

Where the Grease Pops Like Applause

There’s a place between 135th and don’t-you-worry
where my auntie stirs truth into red beans,
and the kitchen sings like a gospel choir
on a Sunday with no hurry.

The table’s legs are uneven,
but we balance it with old Ebony magazines—
the ones with Diana on the cover,
still fierce, still shining
through gravy stains and heat.

Here, home is the soft slap of dominoes,
the thump of bass from the back room,
the way my cousin shouts
who cut the spades like that?
and nobody answers
because the greens need tending
and the sweet tea needs more sugar
and the world is still outside,
but not here.
Not in this house.

Here, we pass stories down
with the hot sauce.
We call each other nicknames
long after we’ve outgrown them.
The screen door squeals when it closes,
and that’s how you know you made it.

Made it back.
To yourself.
To laughter that knows your middle name.
To hands that braid your edges tight
and ask about your heart while doing it.

They say home is a building—
I say it’s a hum,
a scent,
a rhythm in the rice pot.

It’s where the grease pops like applause
for every version of you that’s ever survived.

Gloria Ogo is an American-based Nigerian writer with over seven published novels and poetry collections. Her work has appeared in Eye to the Telescope, Brittle Paper, Spillwords Press, Metastellar, CON-SCIO Magazine, Kaleidoscope, The Easterner, Daily Trust, and more. With an MFA in Creative Writing, Gloria was a reader for Barely South Review. She is the winner of the Brigitte Poirson 2024 Literature Prize, the finalist for the Jerri Dickseski Fiction Prize 2024 and ODU 2025 College Poetry Prize both with honorable mentions. Her work was also longlisted for the 2025 American Short(er) Fiction Prize. https://glriaogo.wixsite.com/gloria-ogo.

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