A hundred ways – warm fingers
Too cold at the nape
These nights that swayed. Mothers tore
At festive lull
Road singers
Chant a mild tune, lone
A hug only could douse
To a make-shelter heave of their elbow-pads
The weary limbs alone was horror and faith
Locked so far with fright and fight
Daughters share the mucus for repast
Awaiting mother-breasts resurge
Breach the screen
With hurt sirens, good wants
Must survive the whistled purr
Of a safe-journey bid down the senile street
Voices down!
Our agencies are serene and affairs
Intense, and meekly now
Turn around, fixed in nation’s hitch scale
Week two:
The tears of pained innocence must course
To strange needs – ache of elbow
For offspring’s rheum when she had
Dined on prayers and the febrile nerve
Written by: Oyin Oludipe
