Ibadan
2022; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 96; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/wlt.2022.0055
ISSN1945-8134
Autores Tópico(s)Language, Linguistics, Cultural Analysis
ResumoIbadan Adedayo Agarau (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution DANIELA YOHANNES (UK/GUADELOUPE), SUBTERRANEAN (2019), ACRYLIC ON LINEN, 116 X 89 CM / COURTESY OF ADDIS FINE ART there are flowers you can’t touch outside someone’s houseat night, a motherpounds the head of her newborn at first, it was music then the silence of crickets we gather dust sand murals wilt flowers worn-out sandals iron cast over dreamswe collect the firstfruits ones older women snatch from us in sacred rooms fried in sinmy aunt’s husband sacrifices her for riches the shade of shadows stand still in his courtyard we no longer goto their house no longer eat their foods ones my cousins bring in baskets covered with towelsi kick a frog out of my slippers put saliva on my wound leave for school the morning i am kidnapped when they found me i was standing by a pole unconscious the window of grief that openedin my family shut itself & opened in a house down the street then children began to die thenwe could no longer go to the playfield at dusk to run & sing & dance & call someone ugly & watch them cry & sing them sakasakashushu everywhere a weed grows, there is a wild mouth eating children i dream that someone carves out my friend’s eye, & the next day he was gone, foreverwhat do i know about leaving that held the hands that snatched me? we gather dust for bodies that never made it home pray over their bodiless graves, wash our hands in the river down the road & lock ourselves in our parents’ house no one knew what took everyone. [End Page 39] Adedayo Agarau Adedayo Agarau is an MFA candidate at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His manuscript, The Morning the Birds Died, was a finalist for the 2021 Sillerman Prize. His chapbook, Origin of Names, was selected for New-Generation African Poets 2020 (African Poetry Book Fund). His poems have appeared in Frontier, Lolwe, Perhappenned, Boulevard, and elsewhere. Copyright © 2022 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
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