How My Mirror Makes My Morning Muse

ADESINA AJALA

most mornings, i forget to look myself in the mirror—
does a boy concern himself with his looks?—
forget to let the mirror lure me back into myself. forget to
perform this ritual, like the ablution, because
your look can be a whip, lynching water from your eyes.

last morning, three weeks after refusing the face
of my mirror,
i opened up to the truth in its glossy surface,
and it mirrored back to me the reflections of myself:
a burrowing worm; finding respite deep in salted earth. i writhed.
the syllables of my name became like dirges on the lips of an eraser.

at the library, i put my laptop to sleep,
seize my face on its blank screen and i see myself again:
a plastic carved into the teeth of a fork trying to poke skins of undone
yams.
i sigh at this hand, this hand I used to pen my c(o)urse
into my entrance form.

this morning, i saunter to my mirror hanging
at a corner in my dormitory,
i see in my unmasked face: a forest of possibilities,
and a lion; fierce, ferocious and fervent.
i see the lion in my eyes possessing everywhere his feet tread,
and i mouth a roar of amen.

ADESINA AJALA

shares his time between treating sick children and creative writing. He wishes to grow roots in the loam of the stethoscope and pen. Although he doesn’t how he would fare, he believes in journeying and the opportunities it drags along.
His works have appeared in Brave Voices Poetry Journal, Writer Space Africa, The Wild Word, Opinion Nigeria, NMA MediNews, The Quills, Featiler Rays, Eboquills, Praxis Magazine, Parousia, Libretto, AFAS Review and elsewhere.
He was co-winner TSWF Writers Prize, winner Freedom Voices Poetry Writing Prize, winner Splendours of Dawn Poetry Foundation and Second runner-up Shuzia Creative Writing Contest.