about 1967

it is a fact that everyone has eaten a part of God
before tasting the fall of man.*
there is a city in my breath
that tastes like stench. a mother
receives freedom from the rapes
of her master. her children are no longer united
they now have strange fathers
a mother prepares her children
for death. gunshots draw them closer
before dust finds an empty space in their eyelids
nothing tastes like having
your lover die in your embrace
you see heaven in their eyes
and remember that there is a place
reserved for you
another mother fights the wind in Onitsha
a soldier dresses her daughter for sacrifice
before the slaughter
a fire slides from the mountain
till it reaches the ground.
too red that she looks away
you don’t stare at gods
during a war, they are always burning
there is a fire
underneath her skirt too
she is craving for water
an angel passes by
silence descends from heaven
her daughter
is an atonement for peace -eternal
a girl walks into her hut in Nsukka
and realizes the poems on the floor:
a family battered into alliteration,
something similar to movies
there are similes, more of irony
than personification
she will wear grief like cobwebs
and will remember the lines in her dream
there is a prize for survival,
something similar to madness
*From a poem, “Denial” by Romeo Oriogun