by Matthew Eli
Waiting for Mother
It feels like rust,
he says,
rubbing the nail we found in the wet bleached sand,
a distance from the river we are suppose to be watching.
He shows me his thumb & index – shining
like bronze confetti in the sun – it is rust alright but
what does rust feel like?
It is not dirt,
at least not like the one clinging to your sole,
neither is it the bronze beauties,
shaped by those casters at Igun street.
His fingers flash in the sunlight like goodbye
but it is just rust.
I wish I could have shaped something,
a thing that will never rust,
or a thing forged from rust,
like the poem Ibadan,
the poem of rusty roofing sheets shining in the sun.
We draw the squares.
He wants to start so I let him.
The nail twists through the air like an acrobat in
a gravity defying dive.
How I so want to defy like that,
to explode into truth like a truck ramming through
concrete walls.
The nail pins the first square to the sand & he
smiles.
He pulls it out & the wound pouts at me.
It does not bleed.
I rub my knee where the rusty roofing sheets on
the septic tank opened my insides,
bone white with jagged puffed up lips, to the world.
It is a scar now, satin to my touch.
I am proud of it – my badge of rebellion.
He makes the second throw & the nail spins
through the space between us but the earth does not open
herself to him this time – the nail falls on its face.
It is my turn to play & I proceed to dig holes into
each square,
pulling out the guts of the earth but she does not bleed.
We pin the nail into the partitioned earth all the day
until the tide returns back to the river for the last time,
taking her wounds with it as the fishers creep into the
inland tributaries – little streams – their shadows coiling
within torn nets & raffia hats.
There are no fishes in the nets,
just heaving kegs of bleary eyed escapes.
We pull out the kegs from the belly of the canoes
& each lift rise the canoes from the black water until it seems
like they will fly.
The fishers drag the canoes between the thighs of
mangrove trees & offer prayers to mother Olokun.
It is almost silent but for the soft lapping of the river,
the crickets at the bank singing a dirge,
the frogs pursuing fragile insects that escort the muted lamps
of our enterprise.
The fishers part way – me & him too – & I walk with
mother.
She rubs my head,
smiles & gives me a coin.
Soon we will be stone
& we, with all of our sagacity, will be no more – books will burn
in the sun, the desert will eat our words whistling down an empty city.
Soon, our story will be the wind.
& missiles carrying compliments from home – careless mines,
bombs & sporadic gunfire – & the brutal taste of fear stained with filial
blood, will come.
We will burn, we will eat death with our fingers, our tongues
& our teeth.
& rending hell into inlets of fire & ice, we will raise fists
against the heavens, we will fall on our stomachs, gag & gorge until
unable to breathe, our gods, we will rip from their unholy altars
& we will know pain.
We will see the fading embers of love & hear the rains’ ruins
roar from distant ports.
Within the hollow vaults of dormant lungs, we will thirst for
the shape of wind
& our names no tongue will caress, darkness will know our eyes,
fountains will spit out of our screams, birds will roost on our brows
& soon, our bones will be stones
Osahon Oka is a Nigerian writer. He spends most of his time cooped up in his room deleting his poems, cutting up his prose, reading any book of interest, listening to music, watching people, crows and bats through his room window and scrolling through his Twitter feed. He writes to save himself. His writings are on literary spaces like The Friday Influence, Brittle Paper, African Writer, Grotesque etc. His book, a collection of short stories is forthcoming on the Praxis Book imprint.
Matthew Eli is a gender-fluid visual artist, coffee addict, and swimming enthusiast living their best life in the mountains of Asheville, NC.