Poetry

By

Hussain Ahmed

Seeking Free Dorm

You knew,

That Africa is a large cow

With a horn and a tail

And that

Her udder gave milk that cured ailments

A miracle

Veiled by the fame of the pyramid

Of Egypt

The horns of Africa, bulldozed unseen hurdles

The tail,

Shook off blue winged flies

A tail of beauty,

Where women are born with the breath of pureed fruits

A land where impossibilities are the thought of the dead

You’ve waited all your life for this moment

When your green mango will be ripened by sun

And fall off the cuffs of its stalk

When you’ll be free to grow wild but useful

Like the pink pelargonium in the abandoned

Graveyard

That sweetened the air

When the grown men visit at night

To undo their grumbling stomachs

You want to go far from home

To a place of wonders

Like Freetown, where you thought

Everything

Will be free

Hussain Ahmed

Hussain Ahmed is a Nigerian, a lover of arts and a welder of words. His poems are published or forthcoming in African Writer, The Kalahari Review, Praxis magazine and elsewhere.