Saturday, 1 November 2025

Poetry 2025 Second Prize, S Abdulwasi'h Olaitan

manual of becoming


your forehead a smokescreen of curiosity / 

vermillion full of questions / 

this poem a manual /


making up my own religion / stringnzm / 

cherry blossoms lose their flowers / 

in the tender dance of growing / 

from a distance heaven / 

butterflies flutter & watch me play like string orchestra / 


my mother perches on a subatomic chair / 

with her òfii fabrics / her eyes / multicolor of orisons / 

her smile / areola of things meant to blossom / 

a woman perambulates / 

a child clinging on her back /

as hope to her vertebral column / 

she asks for a seat / 

dad will not farm dissatisfaction this time /

some little boys in their teen / 

vault over fences & blame a conductor for holding their change /

sun sets like bruise fading into night / 

we watch grandmas stroll with their àpótí & àtùpà / 


dust settles an eye level away / 

like unspoken prayers in believer's chest waiting for amin / 

police wallet

the song darting over the lawn / 

wave their hands & / 

pretend to have left / 

a couple sit / so close

that it's hard for ant to butt in / 


meek everywhere / 

sign of angels among us / 

i perform ablution /


inwardly / 

i weave constellation into my hairs / 

braiding stories incognito / 

grievances are first

shapes i could mold with just a string / 

the left curve of the string / 

a memory held against the sky

of concealment / 


the horizontal line in the left corner / 

a garden / big enough to bivouac a little girl/ 

and her oversized griefs / 

the horizontal line of the right corner / 

depicts / her mother's prayers/

open up like delicate flowers / 

searching for the first rays of dawn / 

the right curve of the string /

are open wounds that do not paint a man of pride / 

from the upper tooth of the first string / 

the samaras in the mountain of sanctuary / 

like gardens harboring hidden blades / 


towards her mother/in the mouth of war / 

the lower tooth of the string / returns her to her mother's bequest / 

as though to say / child / never be cowered / 


eventually dawn arrives / follows winter's breath /

follows flowers that sprout her mother's bequest / 

from her chest / 

and make them a survival wing

that reaches for starlight/

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