Poetry

Rod Waddington photo

By

Okeke Onyedika Prezide

Stolen Memory

You prayed onto your body

The day you accompanied your dead father in a wooden box

To the graveyard,

And shrank your voice into a song.

I wondered about stars on Sunday clouds

When you woke your heart quietly through tears

And wanted to join the chorus

But couldn’t find any mouth.

I admit.

I dogged your eyes as you folded frowns into your mouth

To end every line of your sentence with

“Till we meet to part no more”

Maybe you read those words in his eyes

Before he embarked on a journey of no return

And buried your heart in the seas.

Maybe you stood so close to his heart

And caught every beat with an applaud

That’s why you rejected water

To make him feel peaceful living in your mind.

Today you got married to a woman

With four breasts like cardinals

And wondered why stars appear in the afternoon sun.

Expectations

Tomorrow I will recite these words:

Expectations

Pains

Depression

And gaze through the window to the sky;

Waiting for moonlight.

In my last sentence, I will say only one word:

Smile.

Okeke Onyedika Prezide

Okeke Onyedika Prezide lives in Ojoto, a quiet town in Nigeria. His poems has appeared in Praxis magazine and forthcoming in other magazines. He is currently an undergraduate of sociology/Anthropology in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka.