Winter 2025 - Vol. 22, Issue 1

After the mongrels' growl in that dark hour,

I loiter in the quietness of Ibadan,

In that brown-roofed city rustled with histories—

This slumbering land where my birth

Sucked blood & life out of my mother's body;

Where a stroke rattled the bones of my mother's mother.

Wrapped in a embroidered, purple Danshiki

Passed down as a heirloom by my ancestors,

I hear a dove coo slowly, subdued to the dread

Of the season in its nest. Fela breaks out on a radio

From the roadside paraga seller; my legs are eager,

But my body is static, full of emptiness.

The song, solemn as a secret, wields memories–

How I once sat under a moon that looked

As if the light would never dim & listened to folktales.

How dawn would break like a cocoa pod while I ran with friends

To the water borehole down the streets to fill up empty pails

& compare pubic hairs in deserted houses eaten by lichens.

The old days have slipped out,

& I am still out here with a lamp seeking where they lurked,

Seeking old friends & drifting broken kites.