“ękùn, økø òkèㅡ tiger, the mountain’s groom” from Yoruba
the boy with the crow skin comes from a long
line of tigers who moved mountains to please
their womenㅡwho paraphrased the serpent in
its own wordsㅡfang disguised in fur. our love
of height, not the longing for gods, built a tower.
the men stopped crying as soon as they were
born; picked up their claws & spears to fight.
Akinrere crushed the earth & founded a giant
elephant standing above it. then stole a woman
from his own camp, climbing the palace roof to
feel the mountain’s breadth he hiked in youth as he
wrestled wild cats, clicking their paws as with a shearer’s
knife. once, my father’s half-brother drunk, tipped off
the balcony, broke his ribs & blamed his wife for the descent.
he took them all: women widowed by wars, took war
returnees. the fireplace in his bones was too much for him.
after slaughtering the cockerel, my clan commands
me to pluck all the feathers to prove allegiance
& attention to details. the slaughter smooth & neat.
i come from woodcarvers chiselling their bodies into
gods. i want to leave this land, still toothed with
enough mountainsㅡthat crave ghosts’ claw marks
and their clothes hanging loose from uprighted
skeletons, like mannequins hanging, their snake skin
shedding. yet the mothers still wind open their
love like first milk. the men shed them like a skin.
Jeremiah Agbaakin