Aubade with Regular Adornments

how often should I sashay in this sackcloth, the sky’s
undone hem of silver, the country that claims me?
every day I am a fugitive traveling on the ship of mother’s
countenance. I stretch towards the emptiness of her eyes,
the sun-stroked cabin of her wordlessness. the needles
of her grief made bare & vulnerable. her face, a gentle breeze
that exposes the rots. a shipwreck. I keep a sparrow
under my tongue. I am a shepherd for anything
licked by sorrow. nothing to spare. here: the wildflowers
of youth, the fuchsia adornments. the swaying field
that has its leaves gored with a touch. I am a haven
of mundane things. a worship. a god with armours.
my body is not a home, but a knife laid to rest.
my father once appeared like a river gliding towards
my disappearing. and I watched my mother,
in the saddest of her days sheath her afflictions.
of brutal endings, my idea of rebirth. my name
cloaked in ashes. the hum of vain words.
I array my ghost, a poem about distance. the loitering.
the sculpture of prayers on my lips, the land of broken things.
the night climbing the fence of my face to stay longer.

 
Wale Ayinla

Wale Ayinla is a Nigerian poet, essayist, and editor. He is the author of To Cast a Dream (Jai-Alai Books, 2021), selected by Mahogany Browne for the 2020 Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize. His works recently appeared on Guernica, South Dakota Review, TriQuarterly, Rhino Poetry, Poet Lore, and elsewhere. He is a staff reader for Adroit Journal. He has a Pushcart prize nomination and several Best of the Net and Best New Poets Award nominations, & in 2020, he was a finalist for numerous prizes which include the Jack Grapes Poetry Prize. His manuscript, Sea Blues on Water Meridian was a finalist for the inaugural CAAPP Book Prize. 

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[Is Not Like Anybody Likes Grief, But Na Wetin Go Surely Come]

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Sacrifice for the Future Astronaut