Morning in Sango-Ota – Pamilerin Jacob
How her broom combs the sand into strips,
the swish of her strokes, the crescent
of her back, the integrity of her wrists.
Footsteps so light, they rebut gravity.
The taillight of her husband’s okada disappears in the distance
Rhapsody for Slumber – Pamilerin Jacob
Not this. Not this loneliness swelling
like a boil, the shiv of insomnia drilling into the scalp.
The neighbors think they are quiet, but love
exposes everything the way light does. On
the other side of the wall, I am pulling through the night
Brotherman, – Ajibola Tolase
Na person daddy lie down for street so. The pain pass my power.
I try hol’ am. I no fit. Water wey pour for my eye
reach to baf. Police say make we no waka for late hour.
Say dem go kill us finish. Remember say all die
Harmattan Season – Animashaun Ameen
I rub myself with more lotion than normal. If I am dying inside,
I want to, at least, be shiny on the outside.
An unkindness of raven perched on the barren tree—
I do not understand the language of their songs
Anti-Hubris – Muiz Ajayi
now a young lady
whom i think well-meaning shoves the scripture
in my face while i promenade. & i do not get
vexed. ọlọ́ládé says i bury my tongue
alive each time i evoke its nativity. & i do
not get vexed
Leading Woman – Edil Hassan
and while some say the first displacement
was from the Garden it was actually this:
a woman looked into water, into shimmering light
into a wet mirror, and mistook her face for the face of a stranger
Open – Sarpong Osei Asamoah
I open with joy and they say watch your mouth.
I learn to make something out of emptiness like bells do.
I watch a bullet make poetry out of holes;
the heaviest things to carry are the holes inside ourselves.
All the Saints of Elmina Castle are Wet – Sarpong Osei Asamoah
All the blood is a black road through the sea
All the saints are fishes folded in a wave.
All the gods must be sweet cows slaughtered with silence.
All the boats are a sour sword slice of history.
Drought – Alshaad Kara
Baked beans fried as a doughnut,
We soak into our thousand miseries.
The savannah cleanses itself with its own tears,
Tethers our wraths to those regional ears.
Log and ease the pain in my muscles
Pre-Elegiac Love – Kei Vough
I’ve stumbled upon grief at the expanse of your gaze.
You, my bald queen who lost her hair to a failed chemotherapy.
The night’s silent with premonition.
The stars are sunken
father, son – Martins Deep
somewhere, as you read this poem,
a wraith awaits
the miracle of water
in the wells of his parched eyes
as he plants a kiss
on his son’s brow
one reaches for the other;
sepia for olive
the shore a stage so lovingly set – Alírio Karina
there are so many ways to tell a story about despair (i mean, joy)
how many times, a body between bodies, moving to an old hum,
commits to breath, to touch, to that tilting back of the head