Adedayo Agarau
(for ibadan)
we wait for the sun to crawl back
into the belly of pregnant clouds
so we’d wear an emblem of a city
that plants in our feet the urge to run
and dream with our nostrils sniffling the tongues
waiting to wear a new language
we all wait in this city, for mothers
who break their dreams into half loaves
and feed their children on how to breathe
within the confinement of water, i know
how my mother named this city, i know
how my father ran with a torch to search
for shadows crawling the walls of molete
on the skin of this city is a circus of men
who leaves home in search of fire in the eyes
of lasses nibbling the mouth of brown bottles in Asas
swaying to soft beams of Apala, nodding and tapping to the groove
there they stretch hopes like the thighs of virgins
and the morning wakes too early for their feet
and boys break their arms trying to take a letter home
and boys leave without saying goodbye and
i had my first girlfriend in this city and i kissed her
in the dark walls behind the trees too old to shut their mouth
my father wakes every morning with a grumble
like this city is shifting and healing the sores in his mouth
my mother had her fifth child in this room
a memory of names made a graffiti on the brown rooftops
they sat in twos and threes cutting the pieces of Amala into a lake of vegetables
the men hang their bottles in their armpits and kept their footwears on their heads
rain came that evening, and we all said a prayer of thanksgiving
Source: Enigmatic Global Concept
Editor’s note: Originally published as part of the 31 Days of Poetry series on VicAdex.com on 10 July 2017.
Editor’s note: Originally published as part of the 31 Days of Poetry series on VicAdex.com on 10 July 2017.