Èjì.

Glaciers re-emerge in the north

coalesce into a tight caress

Down south the trees own larger shadows

than windowed buildings could dream of

 

It’s mango season and I

Buy from the local market

The woman who sells tells me a story

of how the world once laid in ruins

how the past is a myth, a cautionary tale.

I trade meat for her fruits

she pays me a smile and it adds joy to my life

 

I walk freely

into Nigeria

without a passport

The concept of borders is now a relic

The word border means

the fence between my neighbor’s yard and mine

and even that we tore down ages ago

 

The skyscrapers had been dead for eons

only refracting the cloud-filtered sunlight

Waiting for a spell

the forest nymphs whispered

into the undercurrent of concrete noise

The satyrs played their lutes the sweet music dissolved

city into forest, sprites sparked lamplight into fuchsia firelight

androgynous android bodies of mangled metal   cluttered

the chaos of glass empire ruins

 

Houses were rebuilt from the shattered fragments of our old world

We paved streets with computer keys

We built roofs out of fallen towers and doorknobs out of melted iPhones

And people had hearts, not net values and we traded in possibilities

So our joy could multiply with the love we received from this loving earth

 

Ẹta.

In our Black Transcendent-Awakening

Some of us still lay bare in dirt

watch our flesh decompose

until we see our milky white bones

that match their marble homes

and pearly white

picket fences

like the ivory clouds that

separate heaven from earth

locked dumpsters as if their trash is gold and too

good for starving

decayed nails to crawl through

for survival

 

Some of us float below daylight

With gold in our stomachs and silver-spoon tongues

and still don’t believe

we weren’t born black just to die

****

I fear I never loved enough, fear I never loved our

shattered blackness enough

to form the revolution that would save us

 

never took the time to scour every inch

of my sodden ebony flesh, sagging with the weight of being

But they will,

they’ll look

and cover every crevice

of my body

When they find my still corpse

they’ll see the gun

wonder why it’s pointed at no one

 

But I imagine if I loved us enough, loved her enough

I could walk up to supremacists and the Kkk

And say I love her so much   you don’t seem horrifying

I’d walk up to white cops my hands by my side and I’d say

I love her so much

Even if my last moments are here gazing

into your bullets approach

Piercing the thin film of water coating my eye like a silent river,

I wouldn’t pray

my life would flash before me and I would be able to see

 

every moment I had with her replay

And I’d be okay with that

 

I imagine the ecstasy of our embracing self-loves

Would impassion our black world

And black love would be more powerful than revolution

I imagine I’d dream lucidly with my eyes open

I imagine we’d love as our first awakening