Poetry

T Y L E R G E B H A R T photo

By

Mobolaji Olawale

Free flow

For B. who nothing could break

At a table of adolescent lovers

Ecstasy glows in bellies of two butterflies

Hovering over the quaintness

Of the divine wine served by cupid

Asking what the probability is that

The wine will become

Sweat smeared on a shirt’s collar

Seminal fluid

Tears burning the eyelids that bury them

When milk teeth cannot explain

To the staring eyes of classmates at school

How there’s a baby in a baby

That sweat, tears, vomitus and postpartum bleeds

Can become acrylated liquid on a paint brush

That colour a woman who stood through it all

Unbroken.

How to tell her

They have tutored you a thousand times before

They have told you

You must first come to terms

With the fact that she may say no

And whatever cute stories you have

Of her eyelashes and wet voice

You must time them

In those moments when her eyes retract tears

Like unrotting northern Nigerian tomatoes

In unmaking acquaintance of sorrow

In that period between the last bomb blast and the next

They have told you to plant your seed of love in her heart

In the time between the last uprooting and the next

Because every bomb blast is an uprooting in her heart

And you understand-

It all makes sense

Until you realize

There are no such moments in Borno

And so, you probably will never tell her.

Mobolaji Olawale

Mobolaji Olawale is a medical doctor who has been published in Brittle paper, afridiaspora, African writer and Kalahari Review. He worries about his FPL team every weekend.