By Prosper Ifeanyi
& quite frankly
I myself
thought God hurled
a hand on the road
to cause this much panic
on a hundred vehicles— & He
said: not me,
I have no hand in the making of
pale daylight & jagged roads.
& I believed him.
I believed, for once, that God
wasn’t responsible for anything.
& like a sprig floating
tentatively atop
a river, the thoughts come
back to me. Insular,
clear. Everything
thirsts. Even the bones
& debacles of lost ships
& foreign cargoes.
I hold on to the fat toe
of my burning country
& come face to face
with the man within— the breathing &
the well-travelled roads of the body,
ridden by desire, fueled by touch. E
Prosper Ìféányí writes from Lagos, Nigeria. His works are featured or forthcoming in Transition, Magma Poetry, Black Warrior Review, Denver Quarterly, Poetry Wales, The Offing, and elsewhere.