Sometimes silence is the loudest kind of noise
Like sometimes it was best when
Girls were girls and boys were boys.
Like back when freeze tag was a mating dance.
Like back when “Do Over” meant you got another chance.
Like back when anxiety was worrying if Wonder Woman would make it out alive.
Like back when freedom was sliding backwards on a slide.
Like back when success was jumping off a swing and
Landing on your feet, then
Doing it all over again.
Like new shoes made you run faster.
Like getting Ms. Gross again for math was a disaster.
Like failure was a word we hadn’t even learned to spell yet.
Like promises were sealed and kept with pinky bets.
Like a challenge was a double dare.
Like ugly was a cock-eyed stare.

And you liked it…
Like when you flipped your eyelids inside out
To impress that boy across the room,
‘Cause that’s all it took.
And there was no such thing as too soon,
As long as you checked the right box in that note from across the room,
The one that he…passed her.
Back when, “I don’t know, maybe” was a legitimate answer.
Back when, “I need space” meant he needed more elbow room to draw,
So he got on the floor and he coloured outside the lines.
Like the lines of colour were on the floor,

So we just existed in sandboxes and playgrounds.
And we hop-scotched and dodgeballed
And everything I needed to know, I learned in a shopping mall.
Like don’t wander off on your own,
Like know who you are,
Like know where you came from,
Like never let go of your mother’s hand no matter what you do,
Like if you get lost, just stand there until someone finds you,
And someone will always look for you
Because someone will always miss you
And someone will always find you
And when you cry, someone will always remind you
In that quiet, quiet lullaby voice,
That sometimes silence is the loudest kind of noise.

We present this work in honor of the Nigerian holiday, Democracy Day.

 

Our dreams are hindsights
travelling to the people under the earth
journeying down the cities
filling the centuries with sons
so fat they can’t pass the needle’s eye

Only the ointment keeps faith
in the hands of a daughter
preparing you for burial
the unleavened bread
calls forth mourners

And prostitutes eating bread
with hallowed hands.
Henna mingles with hungers
at the eleventh hour when
rejected pebbles fall like death
sentences on brown earth

This wine sets my eyes on edge
to stilled waters on barren hillsides
this wine red in the cup
the scarlet thread
the broken donkey
Linen breeches dyed in crimson.

The air is rich in prophecies and revolutions
within the olive tree
a copulation is a flame
burning the bush full of grass windows
the light shimmers upon the waters

Light is a quiver of arrows
Light is an earthquake
Light is a stormy wind
Light is a great cry
electric on bones and skulls

The bones are diving for flesh
The shrouds are dying in the stars
There is light in our loins.

 

Find me an orchestra of elephant tusk horns
bulrongs and drums
I must have
instruments of hair and string
for last night I had a vision of a two-
winged symphony O let us
sing our longing to the heavens
and grieving, they will bear us to forever
where our clothes are not so dull We
will be made of purple
flowers there it is always
spring There there are no kings.
How much longer must we ring
this blue bubble of unbroken bitter-
leaf soup drinking
where pain is measured
in depths of laughter but laughter
often hides
regret of salt?
I will build a house that swims
a fish to net the world-
a place to warble duets
when the big rains come.

We present this work in honor of the poet’s 50th birthday.

 

He creeps into my bedroom
when the night is most alive.
Unafraid, he feels for the walls
that will bring him to my door.
It has been four years since I spat him
from a lip in my womb.
Yet every night, he crawls back in.

The first light pries through the curtains.
He kisses sleep from my eyes
and pinches my lips to seize my first words;
he wants them for himself.
I breathe in the smell of milk
that has never left his forehead.
God, if I could birth this boy again,
I would.

I watch him at breakfast.
His face is crushed like an eggshell.
For him, food is slow, fist-under-chin torture.
Mother, let this plate pass over me, he pleads.
At once, he attacks the sweet jar.
He’s a boy soldier.
His face is ever smeared
with chocolate paint.

I watch him from my window.
Bent over like a rainbow,
he scours the garden for things
his fingers are drawn to.
He seeks me bearing gifts:
hollow beetles, strange stones, flattened cans.
I push them back into his metallic hands.

At night, he pulls me down
on my knees and moistens my lips
with kisses.
Good Night, Mum, he says
and walks away
from me.
My insides flap about like a wet loincloth.
Come morning, come soon.

 

When the world unravels before you
and even your dreams are crumbling stones
when everything you dare to touch
is set on fire
and all around you is ash and smoke
remember this

rock bottom
is a perfect place for rebuilding
Remember that you are your mother’s daughter
your grandmothers answered prayers
a whole bloodline of women who bend
in response to raging winds
there is nothing broken here
nothing damaged or discarded
each scar is a badge of honor
every misstep is a victory dance
waiting to happen

You are a woman becoming
learning the complicated language
of forgiveness
the intricate lessons of the universe

Your heart is just a muscle
it needs exercise
and you were born for this sort of heavy lifting
you were born one part saint
one part warrior woman

Loving yourself without shame
is the most important thing
you will ever have to fight for

 

A land slumbers under a blanket of coffeed weeds
With lashings of withered wreaths numb on gravestones
A broken fence, a lone gatekeeper, a shroud of trees
Keep the memoir of ghosts who can only sleep
When relatives insist on visiting, bringing new flowers
Which they then water with tears and dress in silence

The broken branches which are gathered under trees
The faded epitaphs speaking to the sun about memory
The dried leaves cracking with the reticence of rainfall
The shade from the high weeds crowded into themselves
The people crouching to straighten fallen headstones
On their beloveds’ graves, then murmur their departure

The footfalls fading from the streets
The trees departing from the avenues
The sweat evaporating from the skin
Remote traffic sounding like gossip

A lone gatekeeper standing by the gate
Adding up thoughts of differences and loss.