To the brown broken boys who let their
Fear of death come at them white as
Chalk. To the women who cover their
Mouths with prayers enough to undo a war.
To the young girl whose forehead is cold
Whose death is still warm. Whose palm
Would never cover her anguish.
To the extent the bullets go to make
A cursive line by the edge of a life.
To my mothers culture, bent into the
Underworld by exile, to my people—
Broken folklores in the night, to gbagyi
Accents, a lump in my throat—
To the end of the road, where the light
Was put. To the delicatessen by the
Mouth of Sudan. To the suya spots
In the locals of Kano. To the diasporas,
The brewing of music under tents
Small enough to be called IDP’s
To the small scroll of slavery our ancestors
Wrote, to the delicateness of time before
Our mothers were our mothers. To the night:
Royal emblem of ecstasy before the wound opens
Its mouth for glory. To the snapshots of photographs
Before every moment is lost. To the exile, and the exiled.
To the napalm before it hit Congo, to God before
His laughter was a man before our wreckage.
To the whiteness of cotton before a corpse
To the quiet in our chests before the night claimed us
To the universe: cloak of sadness.
To the laughter before it became a cry
Before our deaths came to us white as chalks
To the music, we offer ourselves before our fears
Vulnerable as milk before fermentation.
Abdulrazaq Salihu, TPC I, is a Nigerian poet and member of the hilltop creative arts foundation. He won the SOD poetry contest , BPKW poetry contest, Poetry archive poetry contest, Masks literary magazine poetry award, Nigerian prize for teen authors(poetry), Hilltop creative writing award, and others. He has received fellowship and residency from IWE writers residency, SPRINg and elsewhere. He has his works published/forthcoming in Uncanny, Bacopa, Consequence, South Florida poetry, Eunoia review, strange horizons, Unstamatic, Bracken, Poetry Quarter(ly), Rogue, B*k, Jupiter review, black moon magazine, Angime, Grub Street mag and elsewhere. He tweets @Arazaqsalihu; instagram: Abdulrazaq._salihu. He’s the author of Constellations (poetry) and hiccups (Prose).