Vagabond | a CỌ́N-SCÌÒ poem by Adesiyan Oluwapelumi

I burn my father's prayers in a heap
     of hemp, & marijuana. I, vagabond
because the wind will not leave me.

     The road ahead is a forbidden way
leading to a discotheque for lost boys.
     You are trying to say home, but I mistake

 it for run, & so I leave. A child, homeless.
     Because there is no home in me.
I, siren song because the voice of whom

     I trail is an echo in the dust, lost in silence.
The people I love are memories fleeting
     away like embers. My mother's face, a ball

 of gas moulded into the geometry of a solid
     cloud. I do not remember her so the cloud
rains on me to teach me her touch. It becomes

      harder to remember my name. I, eclipse
because my body lives inside a shadow's hut.
     The elegy of the black swan in the forest is
 
 for me, for things lost. I want to return like
     a soul from a dream, but the wind tethers me.
I, wind because I am the child with legs that 

                      know no home.