by Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka
departure
because my country is a grave,
it never gets tired of burying.
& a man is still alive under my shirt
only because he hasn’t been found dead.
there is no memory deeper than
the sight of the world burning before you.
just last week on my way to a pub,
a family of five heading to Onitsha
found home inside the belly of a truck.
until now, the picture still lives with me.
but i feel the feeling most whenever
i sit inside the slit neck of my room
not sobering, not saying a litany
in which i won’t meet God,
neither am i burning a cigar nor thinking
why after these wishful years of my life
i am still living beside a roadkill.
but there i was tasting the rain
in the mouth of someone
i do not love. & do not wish to love,
except out of desire
& not out of curiousness he buries
a cop who buried a boy
inside the larynx of a gun.
whenever i stare into a man,
what i search for is the hunger
& not just his heart. the difference
between desire and hate is not
how we gather the ruins
but what we do with what we gather
after the collapse of our body.
it is true i have not been to some places
but i can tell the kind of wolf that tears them apart.
on a slow boat moving out of Darfur,
a boy followed the neckline of his father
who followed an exodus of men
whose grandfathers followed the origin of water.
what i am trying to say is
not every ending must take after its beginning
& a story can sit anywhere
inside the chest of a man.
it is nightfall again & i am here
staring into the city where a mob
once ran over the shirt of a friend.
the boy in his throat
they poured into a gun
a gun with teeth frothing his blood.
his blood they gathered into a river.
a river running into the wishbone of history.
i understand a city is built this way for someone
like me to leave when all i want is stay alive,
watch every flower i have tucked
into my ribs grow into a cathedral.
but it has never been that incorporeal.
the flight that often comes after a fall.
the surrender of a man to hunger
before knowing the weight of fullness.
Michael Agunbiade is a young Nigerian poet who writes from the small hole of his room. His works have appeared or forthcoming in The Shore Poetry, Bodega Magazine, Afrimag, Writer Space Africa, Brittle Paper, Poet Lore & elsewhere. When he is not writing, he is either drinking coffee or listening to J.cole. You can find him on socials @ Michael Agunbiade.
Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka’s photographs have been exhibited in shows, art journals, and used for book covers. She is the author of two award-winning collections, Oblige the Light (CityLit Press, 2015), and Face Half-Illuminated (Apprentice House, 2014). Co-editor of Loch Raven Review, she grew up in Poland and now resides in Maryland. Website: danutakk.wordpress.com.