Ode  

Alaga Unwomanumu

| after Em Power 

to all the inconveniences i must bear, like salt on my tongue. to the vacuous interstices of memory, the pearl of remembrance. to the wastelands inside my head and the stinking gullies etched on my chest. to the twitching organism between my legs, the rust-stains that won’t leave my palms because i have clutched the metal of your face for too long. to dust, the way it sits on your shoulders on a bleak harmattan afternoon. to chrysanthemums and all that can wither. to my father inevitably shrouded in the gathering cloud of age. to my mother and the dim cacophony of her voice over the phone, of heavy rain on the roof. to my brother’s incuriosity, my sister and the sickly river of her eyes. to the floating silhouettes trapped inside my closet. to night. to nightfall. to the scrutiny of daylight. to this road in the middle of nowhere, at once familiar and unfamiliar, winding around my neck. to the same road we treaded to high school, its slippery undulations, its stench, its mountain-high refuse dump, its algae, its moss. to all the cadavers i have touched - all the times i have been a cadaver myself; inert and unfeeling. to the sprinklings of mildew over these clothes terribly in need of laundry. i wake up and i find bits of myself all over the place; the soft animal of my body, twice hardened, antagonizing what it loves.

O i want to be the luminary

that crayons the sky with joy—the fibres 

holding together echelons of stone.

Alaga Unwomanumu (18) writes poetry and short fiction from Rivers State, Nigeria. He is a first-year Law undergraduate of the University of Port Harcourt. The first runner-up of the Vivian Ihaza Teen Poetry Prize, his works have been recognized by the Muse Journal and Fiction Niche Literary Magazine. Say hi to him on IG @unwomanumu