The Art of Dance

By Adesiyan Oluwapelumi

Somewhere in Orita Merin,
there is a boy with kinky Afro-hairdo and willowy legs,
waltzing through the kerb on Nike sneakers.
There is a fluency to the rhythm of his feet.
His ears plugged into headsets as though
to unmute the ambient noise of the world around him.
If you listen carefully, you will hear
the broadcast of bone against bone—
the radio of the protest of wind, in-between,
bruised and groaning. I beseech, what calls us
to a place beyond the breath of dance where legs wade on water?
Lord, I know everything has life and if allowed, will dance.
But where does all the music go when there are no
more dancers left to carry the breath of songs on their feet?
Lord, they broke the spool that played the vinyl
and left us songless as timber. The music snatched off
our legs like beads stripped off ṣẹ̀kẹ̀rẹ̀. And our bones,
carried in them—a metallic silence that fractured the air in halves.
But every now and then, we heard the refrain of a voice,
a familiar memory, bellow out from a distant place,
singing a familiar, old tune: remember, remember

BIO:
Adesiyan Oluwapelumi, TPC XI, is a medical student, poet, essayist & Poetry Editor of Fiery Scribe Review from Nigeria. His chapbook “A Mouthful with Cinders” was selected by Chris Abani and Kwame Dawes for the APBF New-Generation African Poets Chapbook Box-set Series (Akashic Books, forthcoming 2025).

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