Family

Mummy Tobe sat in the spacious living room of her one-bedroom apartment, her jaw set firmly on her hand and her hand set firmly on her leg. Her expression was one of deep thought. Her eyes fixed on the linoleum floor and peered into the unknown. Her friend Agnes was sitting on the same sofa […]

CW: Depictions of violence The first time I hear Cinderella, Mother is crying slow, deliberate tears that gather at the corners of her eyes before releasing themselves down the steep ridge of her cheekbone. Each one catches the fractured afternoon light like something briefly precious before vanishing into the collar of her kanga, which has […]

Born in Tede, Nigeria, Ifeoluwa Ayandele is a poet with work in Callaloo, Poetry London, Magma, Michigan Quarterly Review, among other publications. Besides being shortlisted for the Wisconsin Poetry Series’ Brittingham & Felix Pollak Prize and the 2024 Autumn House Rising Writer Prize in Poetry, he has received the 2026 Pink Poetry Prize from Great […]

after Nikki Giovanni’s “resignation” (for you, you, & you)i love you because our mothers say nothing is more worse than eating alone so we eat iyán & ègúsí from the same bowl brotherman you who would wrestle a blue whale for my sake i love you because of all the steep mountains & the hills […]

I became afraid of Molue buses the day my mother told me how my closest cousin, Anifa, lost her parents. It was an accident: a molue lost its brakes at the Oshodi-Abeokuta expressway and rammed into their car, injuring and killing several people. I remember riding on the bus a few times with my mom, […]

When we last went to Mother’s rural home in Gutu in the early months of 1997, the river still flowed, the buses still ran on time, our money still had value and I still cared about my family. I still cared about her. No, not Mother. Her. No two people were closer than me and […]

Three years after my divorce, on the very eve of my divorce anniversary, my sister Oge texted. At first, it was a call. I was in the kitchen staring at the fine china my last mother-in-law gave me on my wedding day. It was my ex-husband’s favorite—a set of sixteen plates and bowls and saucers […]

Translated by Cliff E. Landers “The dark-blue suit, dear, the one I brought back from Indonesia some days ago.” (She had asked, “What are you wearing to the reception, André?”) There went Belita, once again silent, spending her life at the ironing board. Her eyes, inexpressive but at the same time with a serenity that […]

               PRELUDE I remembered asking a parent of my year-two student, “How is Mohammed? He was absent yesterday and I was worried about him when I heard about the bombing in Bab Al Aziziya.” “They hit our neighbor’s house, Miss Noeme. It was three houses away from us. We had to run and stay with my […]

They slipped him in during the night. We all woke up in the morning to find him there, in a sitting position, occupying the bed beside the man who screamed God’s names each day they changed wound dressings. My first thought on seeing him sitting there, shirtless, his torso rising and falling heavily in an […]