— after Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí
to sandpaper a boy's body,
gift him a carpentry of grief.
at the throat of this poem
is a burnt prophecy—
that after everything,
we'll eat from God's palm.
every damn thing in this
house has a double tongue
that speaks for itself,
even Moimi's grave.
the memory of how the
earth's throat gulped
her body as
smoothie for breakfast
gets fresher every day like
a synagogue of love mangoes.
for me, unlike others, there were
no final words. only her jollof memory
& the hunger she left behind.
my soul is a loud feeling &
everything is dead today. call a
painter. let's canvass the portrait
of a life well-spent
in the hands of grief.
Flourish Joshua (he/him) is a poet from Nigeria. A NaiWA poetry scholar and second runner-up of the 7th Ngozi Agbo Prize for Essay Writing. He's a BellaNaija Contributor, Managing Editor at NRB and on the editorial board at Frontier Poetry Journal. He tweets @fjspeaks.