all this time we were seated for our own
share of the light now it doesn’t matter
how much furrows are set in our butts
today I unthink suicide I uncork my body
into the arms of morning sun
& fall back into a garden of lilies
I’m the chips & also the ketchup
I eat the sweetness out of myself
into myself
here it is: the delicate art of
unspooling in a birdlike motion
I love the way my body loves me
we think we’d walk into a passage
teeming with ravens & human skulls
but our legs instead gatecrash a party
of hummingbirds today I take
the shape of a happy poem
bad nights, here, we say cheers to a remaking
into a cauldron of daisies we put behind
all the ghosts all the moments of withering
today is when your father dies
& wakes up in the body of a star
I do not worry about tonight
I can almost feel the moonlight on my skin
all I hear are soothing birdsongs laughters of
young girls drawing dandelions around bullet holes
Hassan A. Usman, NGP II, is a black (performance) poet and a lover of cats. He enjoys cooking, listening to Nigerian street music, and also juggles writing with modeling. Hassan is published in Paper Lanterns, Nymph, Poetry Column-NND, Five South, Lunaris, and elsewhere. He can be reached via Twitter @Billio_speaks.
Featured Artwork:
Hope
Deborah Ajilore is a Nigerian writer and photographer. She is a member of the Frontiers Collective. Her works have been published in Hennepin Review, Mud Season Review, Sapphire Hues Press, Stanchion Magazine, Shallow Tales Review, and elsewhere.