Our songs are fading I’m almost forgetting the steps to our favorite dance Our voices are losing their depth I can hardly hear your soothing breath Ever since I left our land In search of that Oyibo money You’ve lost that your wantenten love for me Remember all things we dreamed Our young love was…
Portrait of a Girl at the Border Wall
All the women in my life are hungry I have written this one hundred times. I do not know how else to tell it: the girl by the roadside, the bruised peach, the narrow collar, the night full of birds. Her body is a long river that cuts through every room. See her in the…
Forget (Arua) Remember (Pakwac)
Forget how the rolling hills stopped rolling and began unfolding into flatlands. You have left the badlands. Forget how the sky opened and left behind skyscrapers and scraped knees bleeding into pavement and how blood paved your way into estrangement. Your scraped skin already belonged to the streets and the wounds flowering on your body…
Natural Woman
When was the last time you felt the warm scalp of a woman Run your fingers through her hair Twisted her natural locks through your fingers Or walked your fingers through the rows of braids Just like walking through the fields of corn When did you see the true beauty of your African Woman? Or…
The sun e sons of Africa
They come here with empty faces Looking for the sun The equatorial sun rays hit their eyes, They blink and find the son, Poised, smiling at their wallets With a hot, hard, black, cocked gun. There is no argument to be had with such a gun between your legs. Between sips of badly brewed, black,…
I Lost My Teeth in a Fight
I. My father tries to kill me twice before the age of twelve. both times I’m a tiny thing on a floor. He breaks the branch of a jacaranda tree on my skin and I lose my voice. In both scenarios he screams: I will kill you. In both scenarios, my mother stands by and…
Sometimes Love
Sometimes love Is running for your life When your tanks are still full Of oxygen, When your heart is still alive, When you can still hear its sound Lub dub Lub dub Sometimes it’s saying “No more” And run for your life. Sometimes love Is choosing yourself, Is Loving yourself, Forgiving-yourself, Mending your own scars,…
Her Place
Her place was in a four-walled room called kitchen Broken dishes were the order of the day She had mastered the scents of the various nail breaking dish washing liquids she struggled with every time she tried to scrub the dirt away In this kitchen She was brought down to the level of a dishwasher…
Looking Forward
Hanging on small dreams the year folds itself in the tired sunset like a mimosa leaf It murmurs and screams new names old promises lies retold at the same place where songs are set on the loose in unplumbed laughter and tears We lay wreaths of frustration with no other option but to see hope…