Love

– Ọ̀dọ́jà The horticulturist says February is for flower Not for love, so I go into the field In search of plant I once dreamt of Until I find it, and touch and burn and soften under the fire pump of its flamy fingers, And not a metal can hold The frame of this body […]

Kamo held a braai at his house on Saturday. Tumi decided to go there dressed as Slick Rick, sporting an eye patch, thick dangling medallions and necklaces, trinkets, and all. It wasn’t a dress-up party or anything like that, he just felt like dressing up. And, because he had The Art of Storytelling playing on a loop […]

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 […]

I love my country. But America Courts me — the man with everything. I love my country: Dark, Black, Gold Yellow teeth & a hunger for me: My country with its abundant rains That loves us to death. I love my country. But America Is big everywhere: Texas. McDonald’s. Starbucks. America Sephora, Walmart, IKEA, The […]

All the lights call it a day. All the marigolds go to sleep. The finches manufacture music from the latex of their throats. Let troughed tangled briars beg the earth for a moment. Let winter sit still & patient. There is no remedy to song severed in the neck. There is no remedial way to […]

First you must imagine everything in sepia.  The big fight. The broken bottle. The fire, all of it. I can’t even feel guilty, that’s the evil in this, even if what I meant that night was taken off the edge of the alcohol. What were you saying? Did it matter? Do the things we say […]

Dreams feel real while we’re in them. It’s only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange. -Inception This morning the air was serene and Tebogo took it all in. She was sitting on a rock at the Walter Sisulu Botanical Gardens, amongst the prettiest of flowers and the grandest of trees, […]

When the thousands of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated, they were thought to be business records, but what if they were poems or psalms? My love is the same as twelve Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light Shiploads of thuya are what my body wants to say to your body. — Jack Gilbert. […]

My name is Kaldi, the legendary founder of coffee from Ethiopia. I might have died many years ago, but my spirit is on an important mission to Nairobi. Our hero, Jonah the depressed writer and I were united by my friendly poison, which I discovered in the year of Our Lord 850 AD. The truth […]

Kofi was getting married in Warri and I had a morning flight to catch. The plane was scheduled to depart Lagos at 9.20 a.m. and arrive in Warri at 10.30 a.m.   The time was 8.30 a.m. The Domestic Wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport was rowdy. The queue at the counter was disorderly. A […]