By Káyọ̀dé The foggy morning splitsmy lower lip, blistersthe flesh that refuses to submit to its whiteness. I slip outof the embrace of my mother’s Ankara—and no blanket warmth rivals its old snug fragrance.I am twenty rivers and hectaresof forests…
By Arikewusola Abdul Awal It begins with love: the flame of misery,wanting to be let loose from a kiss— brown eagerness mistakes a landmine foran orchard and runs into a dance of explosion. Somewhere, a life reachesIts climax in flames.…
By Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe Bone-white night. Dead world. All about me, a shimmering river of silver, knife-lit lake of quiet. I have opened my eyes into an inferno of colour. Caribbean sky. Broad leaves and their lemon gaze. Of the…
By Aliyu Umar Muhammad The poem can start with him walking backwards into a roomHe takes off his jacket and sits down for the rest of his life— Warsan Shire Little thing,I know how deathgrows in you.I know how life…
By Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi The whole house, like a body, fenced hot with fleshed clothes that refuse to dry.This, itself, is war, the beginning of the end,the derivation of warmth—like the feeling after a burnraged by a fire of ourselves.…
By Isaiah Adepoju Every evening wind-intangible,feral shadows burst open the wallsof the city like hand ploughing dead grass.The hard, inarticulate things memory-familiar, loyal to a fault— prise the city’sboughs and sunders, its Recyclable God,beat against morning & the innocence of…
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…
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.…
I followed myself for a long while, deep into the field. – Richard Siken the field is always unfilled, forget the sunshine spilling atopthe land. if the body had wings, it would grasp the air& never let go.where do our…
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…
