i take a candlelight into every dream my
body slips into, seeking another light—a miracle
forbidden of oblivion. a komodo slithers with a heavy want
through a giant thicket and swallows a gazelle
the same way death sneaks upon us tumult by tumult
to make our skins its colorful robe. there
is a path to survival, and my country has become a
trespasser trampling upon the tail of fire.
i have always been familiar with bones, brimstone —crows have
turned into echoes, metamorphosing into the only image
this city shows me it is still alive in its gradual decay.
i have lost a brother to the bullets, a sister
to the war, and sorrow continues to reside within
my pores like a wrong chord trapped inside
a grand piano. i am shivering with pain all over
waiting for a night when healing will arrive as a blanket.
the ghosts are singing aloud once more in my room tonight, my dead mother is extending her hands to me for a ballet dance.
Eniola Abdulroqeeb Arówólò is a Nigerian writer and a member of the Frontiers Collective. A Pushcart nominee, his works have appeared—or are forthcoming—in 4faced Liar, Anmly, Fourth River Review, Rulerless, Perhappened, Lumiere Review, Temz Review, Ake Review, Sunlight Press, Kissing Dynamite, Brittle Paper, Ice Floe Press, Afritondo, Better than Starbucks, Tint Journal, and elsewhere.