There isn’t much to say about this room
cluttered with books & festering with mosquitoes.
The carpet stinks of goat urine & the ceiling might
collapse any moment. There isn’t much to admire
about its cracked walls & flaking paint.
Or the chandelier of cobwebs or the old slow fan
spilling dust everywhere. Somewhere here
there used to be life. Such good life, the minnieroot
sang. For old time’s sake, I spare a final glance
before departure. It is the TV I find first
where we watched Super Story.
Now, it sits steady like a monument. & then the table
where I wrote myself into existence. & then you,
there but not there, like always, because a picture is also life
in stillness. I should be happy grey
things stir a memory. I should be grateful that
light seeps in through the windows & the South wind
spares this room its morning melody. I should be
dancing to the wild emotion rushing in
as the woodpecker visits the eben tree armed
with a beak & a redhead. & the tree says welcome
you’ve been gone far too long.
Inimfon Kufre Inyang-Kpanantia
is a medical doctor, writer and singer from Nigeria. Winner of the WNDRRNG prose contest, Finalist K and L prize for African literature 2021, Finalist Brigitte Poirson Poetry contest 2021, Finalist Eriata Orhibabor poetry prize 2022, longlisted for the Commonwealth Short story prize, 2022 and the Awele Creative Trust Award 2020. His works have been published in The Kalahari Review, Isele Magazine, Eboquills, Mausoleum Press, Poetically Mag, Nigerian News Direct, Writers’ Space Africa, Under the baobab anthology and elsewhere. You can contact him @inyang_k on X.