Sikiratu or A Portrait of My Grandmother's Anguished Body
Adedayo Agarau
instead, you are shut out of your own house
what do you say of skies incapable of holding rain
what do you see in your palms besides lines leading into oblivion
you carry a rotten dream in your mouth your wounded mouth
is someone’s resting place what do you say about fishes dying in polluted rivers?
what do you say of sun buried beneath clouds of years & years or of your father’s pictures
hid in the cupboard & between old clothes what do you say of dreams where silt
disperses through your gathered palms of prayers tending to unhealing wounds
of sunrises bending to paint hues into a kind of resurrection
you pretend that you are dreaming of cities where there are flower gardens & bees
& children laughing like rivers turning tides over rocks & that your body is
not the next rhythm after the prelude to fire & that your closed mouth is
not a closed-door that your still hand is not the bird’s clipped wings
instead, you are screaming wolf inside a lamb body you are building a tower
of prayers & knocking on God’s window & chewing hope with your dismembered teeth
you are mourning your body from your bamboo chair cursing the flies gathering
a family on your nose tightening & loosening a fist in your mind wishing life into your hands
Adedayo Agarau’s chapbook, Origin of Names, was selected by Chris Abani and Kwame Dawes for New Generation African Poet (African Poetry Book Fund), 2020. He is a human nutritionist, documentary photographer, and author of two chapbooks, For Boys Who Went & The Arrival of Rain. Adedayo was shortlisted for the Babishai Niwe Poetry Prize in 2018, Runner up of the Sehvage Poetry Prize, 2019. Adedayo is an Editor at IceFloe, Assistant Editor at Animal Heart Press, a Contributing Editor for Poetry at Barren Magazine, and a Poetry reader at Feral. His works have appeared or are forthcoming on Agbowo, Glass Poetry, Mineral Lit, Ice Floe, Ghost City, Temz, Linden Avenue, Headway Lit, The Shore Poetry, Giallo, and elsewhere. Adedayo was said to have curated and edited the biggest poetry anthology by Nigerian poets, Memento: An Anthology of Contemporary Nigerian Poetry. You can find him on Twitter @adedayo_agarau or agarauadedayo.com