Canoe ride to snake island
Lekan Omoniyi
lungs filled,
water becomes venom.
my kindred thirst for borders
with addling grapes and pastures,
drowning mid quest; the Atlantic
is a graveyard of ironies.
you fire up the engine
but we snail across the surface,
where no shell of yours
can save us; the life jackets
do not ease the thoughts.
your vessel halts mid sail
and you say men are like water.
I quiz you in silence.
which is to say I do not lather
when ruffled, I weather.
once I saw a boy washed ashore;
a bottled message to the world.
he looked clean, fast asleep, free
of the world’s blemish.
but I am stone, dirty with sins
and death is no way to come clean.
About the author: Prisoner of language. His muse, the warden and her ousia around his neck, sometimes chain, sometimes jewellery. He tweets @thislekan.
