Where I’m from, I can only love the people I love properly in the absence of light. In the absence of light, I’d place my body gently on their body, hold their hands in mine as our bodies become a country of unified passion. I’d watch as their mouth grow into stories of how they […]
in Hawaii’s embassy, boycotting my state’s embarrassment. Black teens sneak white hopes to the nude scene of midnight & blend with the platform to take shape in a different country. we fund the shapeshift as a marine sport. mothers tongue-lash long as their saliva allows, unknowing that spit are waterwheels paddling our teenagers to early […]
Each passing day asks for my hand. It asks for my hand and thinks I do not know, but I know. I like it when I open my eyes every morning and see myself with you in the first sight. My sister has become a tattoo on my growth, she had taught me how […]
Some countries give new meaning to dress codes, not only dictating what their citizens wear, but also enforcing strict measures with fines and imprisonment— Fashion Police(s). Satin worn past twelve is buttoned satire. all that glam spent, unstarching uniform grains. low-waist silk & the sagging yarn, both heavy with polymer sweat. mother sow cotton […]
Nunc dimittis in a soundproof room How do i say my body is sound proof that, nightly, loss smashes ukuleles against psalms etched on cell walls of the flower i am the shockwaves of this impact, too negligible for the seismograph under mother’s pillow to summon her blistered knees to kiss […]
October 2000 It is a Sunday of warm breezes and gentle sunshine when he asks you to accompany him to fetch the sheep from beyond the small forest of white-stemmed thorn trees and umpaki. The invitation comes as a surprise. It’s the first time anybody here invites you to do anything like this, though you […]
(In memoriam Uncle Ifeanyi Ezeanuna) I am in front of plot 72, Kwame Nkrumah Crescent, Asokoro, Abuja, to evoke Uncle Ifeanyi’s ghost. I look for a sign in the gigantic khaya senegalentis, at the birds in the clear blue sky, in the few cars zooming by. I seek a reason to go home, to […]
Of course, the older man was thirty-five years old and, of course, one day he told the younger man that he was getting married to a woman. He said this while they were in the older man’s three-bedroom high-rise apartment in Ikoyi. They were in the older man’s kitchen, making breakfast together. The older man […]
Under the clear night sky, our neighbours struck up a vigil for Bunie in the open street. The bonfire they made from old car tires sparkled. The flames licked the air. While they danced around it, the fire lit the faces of the little boys Bunie had given free haircuts to on Saturdays and the […]
Some places become homes by habit When the thousands of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated, they were thought to be business records, but what if they were poems or psalms: My love is the same as twelve Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light Shiploads of thuya are what my body wants to […]
