a poem in which i’m everything that calls you
(after Boloere Seibidor’s Rebirth)
the lecturer ambles into the classroom like an
elephant & my shoulder sinks in anger.
why would a lecture roll atop another like lovers? what adjective could unclench the anger
growing wings in my intestine? instead of ruminating the fire
& flood education gifts, i watch my mind
float to your face, frolic after all that speak you &
crave to hold your heart in mine. crave to hold your breath in inertia where every other
voice is a history, my lips calling yours, beneath
the horizon. watch it build a garden where the sky
sprinkles roses on our skins, where you save my
gaze in your embrace & …
the bang on the table throws reality to my face & “get out of my class” drips from the lecturer’s lips.
Last Night
father allowed lust fill his lungs
& crawled into my room when the night
light was losing his beak
& unraveled my mysteries until moans built
a sky scraper, but his palms shattered it & its
pieces laid as dead men on the floor.
say, father’s palm grew a grenade & exploded on my
mouth so mum wouldn’t taste the rhythm of the air.
this morn, the memories still float over my hair
as gasoline
& i’ll strike a match & watch it blow—boom
— before mum so she would she would sniff
the formaldehyde hovering in the room.
Grace Alioke
is a Nigerian writer, poet, speaker, and a student of the University of Benin. She documents her thoughts with the hope of correcting injustices. When she is not writing, reading, helping young writers with their crafts, she should be talking about everything that freaks her out. Her works have been published in Praxis magazine, Analogies & Allegories, Havilah Woman, Lion&Lilac, Serotonin, Heavenshores, Artmosterrific, ‘Happiness, A Crazy Choice’ anthology, and forthcoming in others. She won the 2020 TYWA Short Story contest, and she is an ambassador of The GoodFelo. Find her on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @Grace Alioke.