Reverence Poem by Henrietta Ezegbe

She is revered
like a cathedral.
Voice lowered.
Light angled just right.

Look at her, they say.
Not a glance.
Really look.

And everyone nods
at the holiness of it.

She is steady.
She is selfless.
She never asked him to slow down.
She stayed.

Stayed—
as though staying
were a miracle
and not the default
the world has rehearsed
for centuries.

They build an altar
out of adjectives.

Backbone.
Anchor.
CFO.

The one who held it all together.

Look how she is honored,
they say.

But reverence is curious.

It lifts her high enough
that no one asks
if she is tired
of holding the sky.

It polishes the burden
until it gleams.
Turns labor into legend.
Endurance into romance.

And somehow,
in the telling,
the center does not shift.

Their brilliance.
Their calling.
Their loss.
Their awakening.

Even gratitude
is a spotlight
circling back
to glorify their reflection.

She becomes proof
of their depth.
Evidence of their goodness.
The quiet force
behind their extraordinary life.

Reverence is soft.
Reverence glows.
It does not redistribute weight.

It does not ask
why the structure was built
with one pair of shoulders
preselected for strain.

It does not ask
who designed the room
so that one dream
requires another
to fold smaller.

Instead, it whispers:
Look how loved she is.

As though love
were the same as equity.
As though being seen
were the same as being centered.

I am unmoved
by the velvet tone of it.

Praise built on imbalance
is only a prettier form
of preservation.

Do not build her a statue
for surviving the architecture.

Change
the architecture.