there’s something about this darkness,
how it licks and excites hairs on skins
cupping mind with the serenity we only
meet at mother’s breast. it twirls images of
a life we have lived in dreams: boy and
father walking hands tied on the field;
girl and woman smiling to the heavens
in an alley, middle fingers pointing down.
there’s something about how eyes stay
open and wide, as though it fears how a
blink will blind the faint light pouring
from windows and we die again, reliving
the part where we are ashes roaming
the sky because there are no homes, no
grounds, no hands to keep or dust us
off into sea with a promise. and it’s in
these milliseconds we most miss the
slow simple songs of our soul.
Bio: Precious Okpechi studies Biochemistry at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. His work has appeared in Praxis Magazine, Kalahari Review, African Writer and elsewhere. He thinks there are no better metaphors than the world above his head.
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