gone boy
How the word stands like an inverted igi,
a refusal to obey the laws that birthed it.
Or is it a proper igi with its top
chopped off? All my life I’ve wondered
if my brain’s inverted, improper, asterisked
with defects. Be honest bro, you straight ọkọ
or bent òpò? Bent like a branch or straight
like a trunk? Like a man? You like men?
Mama said don’t stand slanted òwò like a girl.
Òwò like kí. Not proper. A man’s spine
should be trunk-strong. Once, after a fight,
she sat me down with a cup of tea.
Tell me you’re not like those defective men.
I looked her straight in the eye and lied.
Glossary:
igi: tree
ọkọ: straight
òpò: bent
òwò: crooked
kí: crooked
*
going through my notes app, i am reminded of all the boys i once loved
My màmá wouldn’t let me go to the village square
when I was younger, so I jet off with my babe
on his okada to a Fela Kuti song. It’s in our cosmology
to chase the tails of goats over the hills.
The sky stretches, map of strange stars.
I list the star signs of my exes, none of them
from my village. We cheers our palm wine.
Almost all sacred things are blue. Baby blue,
Baby blue. You joke that you’ll never date a city boy,
eh, you sing a love song to natural hair and midnight
eyes. The compass needle stays glued to the moon.
I catch your eyes in every mirror.
There was once a prehistoric river all around us,
even crocodiles. We puff out
the great swimming shapes
of their bodies.
This layer of rock, ancient fossils.
This layer, some ancient eel. How small we are,
how funny. Massive fish-ghosts
vibrate to Fela Kuti. Time is read backwards
in the rock-body: oldest to the top, magma pushing
what’s fresh to the surface. Your hand
skims the deep blue
sandstone, these long-cooled shells.
Tear drop, turquoise sliver of horizon, the creeping river
invisible in the dark. Here’s to you,
here’s to you, ancient and alive.
The sky stretches, full of old and older ghosts,
our once and forever wading pool.
*
Erinola E. Daranijo (he/him) is a Nigerian writer. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Akéwì Magazine, and the author of the micro-chapbooks, ‘An Epiphany of Roses’ (Konya Shamsrumi Press, 2024) and ‘Every Path Leads to the Sea’ (Ghost City Press, 2024). He splits his time between the ‘cities’ of Ibadan, Lagos, and Cape Town. Say hi on X (formerly Twitter) at @Layworks.