by Shitta Faruq Adémólá
Against the Elements
I used to search for you
like a survivor, desperate
to find the love she lost
to disaster, ruin
upon ruin. Remember
how we scaled
the earth, seeking a fissure
deep enough
to swallow us? Volcanoes,
wildfires, floods. Torrential,
the downpours we’ve
weathered. I live to forget
all that’s passed
between us, all that lovely
ugliness I’ve carried
across continents
across riverbeds
over mountains, into my own
marriage, my own
homespun grief,
intentionally forgetting
to pray for what isn’t
possible. Better to remember
to breathe this air, here,
our chests rising
and falling together,
the two of us,
all those years ago,
not seeing
our ending,
not seeing ourselves
living it.
Maria McLeod writes poetry, fiction and monologues. Honors include the Indiana Review Poetry Prize, the Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Prize, WaterSedge Chapbook Competition winner, and three Pushcart Prize nominations. Her two poetry chapbooks, Mother Want, and Skin. Hair. Bones. will be published in 2021. Originally from the Detroit area, she currently resides in Bellingham, Washington where she works as a professor of journalism for Western Washington University. Find her on Twitter @Maria_McLeod.
Shitta Faruq Adémólá is a young Muslim Poet, Phone Photographer and Fiction Writer From Nigeria. His works appear or are forthcoming in Jalada Africa, The Kalahari Review, Third Estate Art, Rigorous Magazine, Chautaqua, Praxis Magazine, African Writers and elsewhere. He was a joint winner in the Shuzia PenProtest Contest, 2020; a second place winner in Naija Haiku Contest, 2020; and also a joint winner in PIN 10-DAY Poetry challenge (November 2020. He always believe Simi’s voice are always ever charming. When he’s not playing Scrabbles, he’s admiring fair ladies along the busy streets in Abeoukuta. Say hi on Twitter @shittafaruqade1.