(cover photograph direction: Tobi Amida)
promise is another way of drawing
bloodlines.
& in my country, we all have a way
of celebrating victory.
silence, too, is a language of joy—
read my lips to make words out
of bird’s syrinx, its syntax.
on a map, my country is the boondocks
where a mother once cried
for her child unreturned,
& the day after, the water
vomited him, deformed,
like a pallet
of junky food.
here, rulers gamble more on lives
than forex, counting the number
of bodies seeding into the ground
like seedling maize, awaiting their
dynasties to harvest:
grievances/
memories/
& pain.
autocrat: i promise you free education.
there will be sufficient water supply,
& [fill the brackets].
the [ ] is not empty. it’s not full, yet, of promises,
but suffocation, hunger, hardship, & anything
that can wring the spirit out of a body until everything
becomes dry.
there is no right here, not even to movement
or life or education or love or vote
or be voted for. & getting back home
in skin colour with sanguine
stain is the language of joy.
God will protect you, my mother said, breaking
everything i unknown of tragedy before i left
Maiduguri. dad said, your mother refuses to eat.
God accepts prayer from an innocent child, too:
my brother prayed for my delay against the bandits.
