By Sodïq Oyèkànmí
—after reading Adedayo Agarau
tonight i take a piece of paper & fill it with the names
of everything lost to the rumbling river to the earth to the hands
that plucked & plucked until what’s left are the crumbs
of memories tell me what’s the use of a body
if its effulgence is stiffled into a bleak portrait?
if a boy is bruised before blooming
with ashes of what he will never grow up to become
i open my twitter & someone is missing again
the news on tv
a lady is missing in a Lagos BRT lost/ if found please return
in another news her body is found decapitated tell me
how beauteous does a body have to be to end up mutilated
for an anatomy practical
or a ritual? organs plucked out like sweet berries for wine
graphic content viewer discretion is advised: a room in a dungeon
innards of infants wherever you stand there
open that big black earthen pot
a concoction of foetuses human heads limbs & bones
another room full of ashes
no proper burial just a gory cremation
i enter another room
& the air sits so languid in my lungs like it’s already been breathed
i walk down the street clad in fear
no one knows who will become the next portrait hanging sharply
on tv on twitter or a notice board
with the caption lost/ if found
please report to the nearest police station
BIO:
Sodïq Oyèkànmí is a genre–bending writer from West Africa. He enjoys writing as he sees this as a therapeutic creative outlet. He co-judged the AKUKỌ Inuargural Literary Competition [Poetry Category] alongside Rosed Serrano. A Best of the Net nominee with works published/ forthcoming in The Muse Journal, Poetry Wales, Brittle Paper, trampset, Agbowó, Pidgeonholes, Olney Magazine and elsewhere. A wildflower who tweets @sodiqoyekan