by Jodie Filan
Transfiguration at our Caesarea
there were many tales the mouths of mothers,
which were the songs of hunger
for the trapping of bicycle jingles
that felling of football stick posts gave credo to.
I’ve been told that Death x Darkness are brothers,
if they be,
then Death is coming light.
and my body,
a beautiful disaster.
we truly turn out to be our mother’s children,
celebrated at their deaths by their father,
pirouetting our anger into soft cackles,
a good doom.
but when our bodies
are a careful slingshot of words by the hands of our mothers,
we verify our brave deaths.
our elders who married the women
would think we were also tied to a careful grief that comes with the wetness of rain,
wherein we frolicked
and they chased us in.
maybe we were all grieving and didn’t know
because grief has a colour for even success.
but within the houses, our joys
were trapped within walls
& symbols
& father’s bragging rights
& mother’s simplicity,
we still knead our own peace and tell ourselves
that every want of a child is a drop in an ocean,
we would be better ocean waves
when we grow from being moths.
today, I have seen that moths never really leave,
they grow to bear more moths
and send their barrenness to the internet
or a crucible held upon flowers.
Olúwádáre Pópóọla is a poet or so he thinks, a student of Microbiology and a Sports Writer for a media company. He writes from somewhere in Nigeria and longs to see a world without discrimination. He is learning how words are made from images and can be reached on Twitter @Kunmi_sher
Jodie Filan is an artist in Saskatoon, born and raised. She has been published in RAR, Dark Ink press, Buddy Lit Zone, *82 Review, Aesthetica (Europe), Pithead Chapel, Nunum, Riza Press, Penultimate Peanut, unstamatic, The Raw Art Review (Spring 2019), High Shelf Press, Please See Me, among others . Recently Ms.Filan also placed 6th in Fusion arts 4th annual B+W competition (May 2019) www.facebook.com/jodiefilanyxe