Abiku [Smothering the expiring stench…] — ‘Funmi Joshua

Smothering the expiring stench,
The failing breath of a dying one.

Alloy with powdered roots and barks, my breath
So it does not cease but cling to life
As now I fear to die.
Buy olonde, strong igbadi
Tie me down the roots of life.
I have come to see you die.
Marrow me in earth’s obscurer reaches
So the fossicking fangs of my friends
Bleed and splinter in the quest for me.

While thus wound in earth’s womb
Spill the last libations
And blind abiku’s restless blink.
Splash your threshold part of earth
With putrefying breastmilk, decaying myrrh,
So abiku’s ambulatory toes may tread
And slip, slide and stray
And never more your worn womb warm.
Sap the dim dew of cock-crow dawn with potent blood.
Bl-o-o-d.
I plead.

Starkly clothe in melted leaves
Your cosy osseous womb; my cosy ossuary.
Naked at the crossroads,
The singing breasts I know
Swinging in the dawn cold
Weeping on the votary floored.

Tireless, Mother
Again you try,
‘Maybe this will stay?’
And as you lay
Warm on the earth
You stop to question
Why, on your wedding morn,
The old ones
Would have moaned,
‘May the bride’s back
Be stranger to the nuptial mat.’