By Daniel Echezonachi
& wet-bearded & long-throated & poised like the hilt of a scimitar. something with a river-long vein and a pliable hunger. something allergic to sunlight. below belts and above knees, something your mother won’t tell you of its night visits. say boys raise buckets of sudsy water not so high, but high enough to shield something when girls saunter to the backyard. something that you raise your mirror down to and beg for absolute truth. say mothers mock-accost their children and blame their disrespect on the growing wires in the body of something. something you place both hands on because the world must not know how much of a rascal it is. something with no eyes but a mouth, & a serpentine wildness. & little gusts of fire & pockets of ravine water. and when the heart of boys beat beneath fallen leaves, there is something singing its own lush song. say a girl behind the stadium takes her mouth to something and returns with a tongue drenched in lactose. something that rises before you & the sun & your mother & the Angelus bell. something you take to your hands, regard with wonder, and raise like a monstrance.
BIO:
Daniel Echezonachi is a writer and student of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. His works have been published in Afrocritik and Brittle Paper.