Elegy for the fig tree

but what business do i have   with the living?

we all become slaves   to memories & chains

remain only to be broken. broken by songs,

a figment plucked from the son’s imagination

of sweetness. or at worst, a quenching. verily,

i have never vanquished loneliness. i tremble

at a body in the white shroud, then lowered in

a slow crater made by hands falling & rising.

iyanju  l’agbe n gbin— we sow a seed for this

soil to ponder on.  i feel kin with what’s other

than me. the paw that holds the claws like key

teething into the unknown animal of my body.

why shouldn’t i trust the dark? the unripe fig.

i fear for the obstinately unripe plantain, for

the life it so much guards against a keen knife

& a pot of boiling water & the net of a grill in

the backyard.  but the rot has come to stay. its

blackening peel burnt into potash & camwood

for a lather cleansing us & all our dead. verily,

i’ll bring a dove into my house but let the owl

starve outside. verily, i fear to touch the dead

cock more than a maternal hen gathering her

children in her wings, & the rest in the shadows

of those leavened wings. her eyes red with love

or fear. i love my fears, for they wait to soften

at my embrace. i fear my love will turn sour in

a mouth like a sponge of water turning sour in

a forsaken mouth, after the honey of mere words

& our sweet kiss. what always lingers is the curse.

Source: From the Isolation Issue (September 2020)