Anansi: A Poem

a python curls about your leg, and whenever he exhales it tightens its grasp

Photo by Chase Chenevert on Unsplash

Nyame is blue-skinned, a dancer. his limbs jingle with movement. the sun swarms with hornets. they dive, they clamber upon your skin, their chitinous legs. your arms casting the benevolent shade of the banana leaf, smooth as calabash, broad as palm branches. he is beneath. his eyes will not move from the spot beneath your ribs. a python curls about your leg, and whenever he exhales it tightens its grasp. a leopard emerges from the treeline. Anansi turns his chin to his shoulder & bares his throat.