By Dolapo Tajudeen
In one of those trips to the Point of no Return in Jetty
Badagry, in the wet of June, the Chaperone tells the story
about the water and our people. How we’re a thing for
ages and ages, surviving; our men ever sailing, by profes
sion or drowning—living obeying the raft; their wives,
staggering to the port at the sounding of any honk far
from dock. I come from this line of men who take to
the waters at will—diving, fishing, before the arrival of
the devil’s anchor at our shores. At Jetty, the statue of a
shackled ancestor fixes its gaze on my temple, as if to
say, What have you done about this? as if unborn, there
was something I could do from a world beyond. At the
edge of the metal counter in Gberefu Island, where the
Atlantic stopped to catch its breath & my people began
to lose theirs, loaded on The Brookes, there is evidence
of the trade; of resistance, of everything undocumented
in the waters. Back at the school pool, I tell my friends
I’m aquaphobic, knowing how walking into the sea may
mean walking into a demise. But what I fear is traveling be-
yond the threshold, encountering the remains of my people
coming back, singing, Son, what did you do about this?
BIO:
Dolapo Tajudeen SWAN VI, is a Nigerian poet and student of Medical Laboratory Science at the University of Ilorin. He’s a ’24 Sprinng fellow, the 2nd runner-up for the Agidigbo prize for poetry ’24. He was longlisted for the Bash Amueni prize for performance poetry. His poem have appeared or are forthcoming in Frontier Poetry, A long House, Akéwí Magazine, Inkspired NG, Libretto Magazine and elsewhere. Connect with him on X @dolapotajudeen3, on IG @dolapopoetry