On the News.
You knew something was wrong when your father appeared on the news with one leg and a half, a doctor standing by his bed, the governor by the other side, officials trailing in this order like a funeral procession.
The Story of a Country.
The world has become a banana skin—soft, slick, and deadly underfoot. The men of my country slip, one by one, into graves, like your father’s photograph falling from the wall and shattering. And I can’t help thinking this place
Hebrew Women.
The frangipani has bloomed again and shaded the entrance of Ihuoma’s home, so much that even when you lounge on the porch, the air wafts the tepid scent directly into your nostrils. It’s July again, her third in Pines Avenue
What I Make of a Massacre Scene.
On the streets, I identify dismembered torsos & limbs, count bullets that missed their shots into me through grief. I think I died in one of the barrages, or did I miss the ship sailing towards god?
The Death of Zagreus.
It is a miracle to wake up these days & not burn like an asshole. The assholery of a man untouched by love—broken thing wetting himself in a room, lights off, music on, because it is easier to be keeled by a promise:
Smiles do not fall.
Smiles do not fall into our creased palms like raindrops, yet dark clouds loom overhead, like a catastrophe hinging off God’s little finger. This is yet another poem about grief. Sometimes, I wonder why we squander
Run, little one.
There weren't always dragons in the valley, but we may not have known because this one was human. We could not believe our eyes and ears when we heard it. It was like being in a riot. Our Chieftain jumped up,
To you, a boy grieving. How does it taste?
They say the tongue is three times more incisive & sweeter than the blade or honey, so you thrust sugar into your words, splitting gratitude into syllables: Al ham du li llah. That is to say, the palm tree hurls
Death and Other Unfamiliar Things.
A man, once dead, is a musical instrument bereft of songs. A song, when unsung, is a silkworm refusing to spawn. In biology class, the lecturer informs us the mouth develops from a buccopharyngeal