The Good News is…

We’d sit and watch the cooking fire illuminate the night,
Africa, the earth darker than the sky
sleeps in silence but not us,
not hungry children daydreaming
under a cruising moon, aroma bewitching our souls.

Ogbónó soup — the favourite of the gods and (wo)men.
Mother cast a shadow to her left,
looks like a goddess in some forgotten myth,
stirring the soup as if preparing a magical
potion for her enchanted subjects —

joy flapping in our chests like a sunbird
in some undiscovered woods.

The cooking fire like the art of seduction,
the soup simmers —
aroma that can make Adam fall again
like how my father tripped over on his way to the kitchen.

Watch us travel on the whiff of taste
like a genie trapped inside a honey jar.
Watch us lust after food like a flirt,
like a bee buzzing outside a sugar jar.

Watch us dream
and wait for the angel to
bring the good news: come eat children.