poetry column
INFECTION
By Ajibola Tolase
In the doctor’s office where
my symptoms dissipate at the news
of negative test results. I’m looking
at my tongue, colored orange
by Fanta in the mirror. Since
it seemed I will live I shift
my focus to things dying in me—
English words I learned
in a different country when
I was five. Orange, I learned
was a citrus before it’s a color
that describes a fruit no one
calls pawpaw anymore. The
last time I heard sealion,
I thought I was special because
I dreamt of stars so low I could
touch them. I think of phrases
like backslide which I took
for the doom of moral failure
but could be a variant of
the moonwalk which is lost
in an era. I have walked out
of places only to find new
ways back, to learn words
to mean astonishing lack
of success as I am learning
new symptoms that could
take me back to the doctor’s office.
BIO:
Ajibola Tolase is a 2021-2023 Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. . His writing has been supported by the Elizabeth George Foundation, and has appeared in LitHub, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere.