Egress by Saddiq Dzukogi

On the callous garment of a waning day-
light, dust, sobbing. Worry, grief.

And the trivial matter of a beggar’s quest
for food, to break the long stretch

of a two-day hunger. After the final rites,
a burring shroud is dangling on a bier

wheeled on the shoulders of mourners, the corpse
silent like a person only wounded

by the simple spectacle of life. There is a boy
leaning against the mosque

pillar, as indemnity against a coming punitive wind.
He, the boy, holds a steady smile on his face.

It is his father going into the house of silence, beyond
the sieve of lamplights, to converse only with ravens.

~

You have planted them too deep,
in the ground.

In Gwoza
it was a simple announcement:

they have been taken. Others are dead.
The barn is on fire. Another, demolished.

What is an appropriate question to ask
the philosopher who jerusalems beyond the moon?

To move on, what little must be remembered
of loss? Song is for those who have figured the way

to heaven. Beating the earth with the backside of a hoe,
an old woman, in a farm—said,

dead bodies are seeds that don’t grow
when put in the ground.

~

Of the streets of Monguno, people say
cows have taken over a Machiavellian browbeat,

enough to drive anyone irate. In their mind,
they mostly mean, the people are dumb.

I consider malice with wonder,
and grovel at their folly. Nothing sweet here,

nothing bitter. With a flurry of chalk strokes,
the street bears the sentence: bring back our girls.

It’s been eons since
they were taken. I want to observe good faith.

I find, sometimes, tiresome my own quest
for joy. We are a country that forgets too easy.

I am not sure if this is wholly true: I say forget,
because there are no memories to begin with.

~

Have you not collected enough
of the wisdom that comes with grief?

Have you not washed enough of the dirt
clinging to a moon-calf under malign influence

of a song, badly sang? Here the old sage of the town
says a song is the most effective prayer.

Look closely, you’ll see every girl is a real princess
in her dreams. Beauty sprouts within fields

of a sentient eye. Come, we are going
to put a bomb on you—It won’t hurt

you, just kill other people. Infidels.
All those who insist on learning

to read the Western way. Beauty is a turn of notice,
away from ugliness, away from sin.

~

Beyond the dreaded land of Bukarti
past the part of night,

where there is no longer darkness,
where love is an egret, with wings

lost to its own fantasy about flights.
Where a woman is told you must braid your hair,

and apply henna—you must look presentable to death.
Where a vest is strapped over her waist,

explosives, buried in a flurry hijab. A flux of light
acquaints the bird with new heights:

One who has suffered enough, you can love
yourself to death, to a new beginning.

Read on . . .

“War Widow,” a poem by Chris Abani