A tree can lower its branches, bow to the wind,
shade its dried leaves, and still stand.
—Zaynab Iliyasu Bobi
This is how loss begins — wears a fabric of peace,
wears silence before it builds a domain in one’s
life. Say, it fans you before it blows you away.
The last word my friend uttered was orò, rite
before oró, danger gushed out of my throat.
before bodies became the sacrifices inside a calabash.
Wind kidnapped a boy from his mother & pressed
a bullet — canine size, into her chest. This is the
handiwork of the night — separates your soul from your body.
Everything has a threshold, even walls — they harbour lizards.
The border between my people and I is sleep. In there,
I’m gods resurrecting everyone that life — time betrayed.
Everybody says if darkness is a seed, it would have
grown on me. Today, I collect all my pains,
all the spirits that lurk in my pharynx
into an hourglass — a silhouette of resilience.
In this poem, I place pebbles on all the remnants
I could gather of my city. on all the bodies
dislocated by a bomb. I orb myself around the
moon. I do not want to become a field for
darkness. I do not want to be a hostage of time.
