let’s say the poem begins with a song: in the city of wind, there are bones.
thus, my father sleeps under wet stars to make a dream that’d last us
till he is home again – a sailor, a man who’s made the sea a map of survival.
in the city of wind, there are bones begging for canopies of flesh, &
this is just another metaphor for the blood & the guns & the fucked govt.
in my room i sleep on the floor with the ghosts of dead friends strolling
into my dreams. i sleep with the doors open, the wind chiselling through the
last song of the hours. every boy i know is walking backwards, threading
their feet back to when we first knelt in gardens to dream of dreams, when
we were running but into our father’s arms, & not into walls of bullets.
see what wounded destriers our nation has made us into?
see what wounded destriers our nation has made us into?
in my nation’s mouth, withered feathers & splintered bones
in my mouth, dead birds & half-sung threnodies –
i am running, a paper plane lost in the city’s body, into
every dream i once had – dead & begging for the last grain of me.
on the street, boys pick the bones of their fathers & write poems
in a room brimming with their mothers’ mannequins
tell me you still doubt this, this falling stars & bones –
here is my tongue, red with caked blood & crusts of old prayers,
don’t ask me why i am still here, my father needs to meet his son whole
when he walks into this house again, his only dream of a silent God
Nome Emeka Patrick (b. 1996) is a blxck bxy and student in the University of Benin, Nigeria, where he studies English language and literature. A recipient of the Festus Iyayi Award for Excellence for Poetry in 2018, his works have been published or forthcoming in POETRY, Poet Lore, Beloit Poetry Journal, Puerto Del Sol, Notre Dame Review, The McNeese review, and elsewhere. His manuscript “We Need New Moses. Or New Luther King” was a finalist for the 2018 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. Alongside, Itiola Jones, he is currently guest-editing Nigerian Young Poets Anthology. He lives in a small room close to banana trees and bird songs in Benin city, where he writes and studies for his final exams in the University.