By Abdulbasit A. Olúwaníshọlá
again, i am exiled from my body.
i now wander like Àkúdàáyá. &
whenever i try rites for ìràpadà,
my body walls itself like a tortoise
crawling its head back into its shell.
it leaks the light to[u/r]ch of God, &
fills the hollows with ashes. days have
ashen & i am still nothing but ghost—a
spirit clinging onto the paleness of air.
of dust. i am dust. puff me &
have me smoke like a cigar.
i am a cigar—lean in my loneliness.
vast in my darkness. i sneak myself
into God’s space at the sky in the form
of smoke—a way to show him i ache
whenever my body quakes like rocks—
to ask for an orientation on how
to green in my pyramid gloom.
BIO:
Abdulbasit A. Olúwaníshọlá, SWAN V, has works up/forthcoming in A Long House, ANMLY, Ake Review, Consequence Forums, Poetry Column, Palette Poetry, Tahoma Literary Review, Singapore Unbound, Sley House, Saranac Review and elsewhere. He tweets @abdulbasitoluwa. You can also find him on Bluesky @oluwanishola.bsky.social.