by Somto Rodney
‘Ali!’
‘Ali!’
A boy,
two boys in ripped jeans,
Ali, his ancestors locked in his hair,
watched as their bodies forgot the grounds they’d been piled in.
Three girls,
four girls who learnt to stitch their scalp in the rain,
Mother, bread drenched in her sweat, in her blood,
listened as their voices cracked into whispers,
like the lips of a child in harmattan.
‘Has anyone seen my brother?’
‘I can’t find Ali!’
No, no, no … Laughs in broken pots
you paint us wrong
We do not come on bended knees,
all we offer is our teeth, bared.
There is no light at the end of the tunnel,
there is only us
This is where we become your fear of death.
‘We have seen your brother’
‘Where?! Where is Ali?’
‘There was a stake where a soul should’ve lain’
Can you taste it?
The violence? Can you hear it?
Have you ever danced fire alive?
Go on, fire your arrows from the depths of a viper’s nest,
and watch as our tongues fork in two.
‘This is not my brother’
‘It is’
‘Ali is not beautiful’
‘What is more beautiful than death?’
Yes, we’ll wither,
but so will you!
We do not seek to rest in peace,
we are hell bound
Come, come meet us at hell’s gate,
come break bread with us.
Somto Rodney is a poet living in Lagos. He likes the smell of freshly mowed grass.
On Instagram @rodney_writes.
