Saturday, 1 November 2025

Poetry 2025 Longlist, 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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