poetry column

ode to stubbornness

By Joshua Effiong while the night was still young,i called the stars to bear witness to the distillation of my desires.& the wind to wash away the debris that remained. i’ve become too old forthe body i possess. even my…

Un-monochromatic day

By Joemario Umana The world is a museum, and I, a visitor as much as an artifact in it. From where I stand, / absorbing the world the way a sponge absorbswater, / the branches of the tree before me…

Enemies of Progress

By Oyindamola Shoola For two years, you’ve huffed and puffed.Yesterday, you did a negativity diet;today, your cure is a sunbath.Tomorrow, it will be a gummy bearthe Kardashians share,and next week, it will be a slimming teapromoted by an Instagram herbalist.…

(not) wanting death

By Ebuka Evans lord knows, like a child banished afresh from womb, my lips long for the flower of a lover’s nipples. lord knows i do not intend to take from another’s to fill mine but i am a hollow…

Recovering ember

By Splendor Victor In this poem, I am not withering anymore.I wake to the petrichor of soft light, and I recalllast night it rained—angel wings drizzlinglike daffodils. And see now, a garden.And butterflies dizzy with joy. God breezes by atevening.…

And my mother…

By Abdulrazaq Salihu For the people that hold me with fur My misery is a small pill,A body, punished by light& at the threshold of mySuffering my mother stretchesHer hands towards the darknessBefore it touches the flowersIn us, and my…