inua ellams

Given the smallest prompt / Father will describe 

how I skulked just beyond the lamplight's reach

watching the ring of men / ripe with beer and laughter

push thick fingers into the mountain of spiced meat

roasted with onions / ginger and chillies like an altar 

I fought to worship at / swiping through their arms

at the chunks / a mouse attempting to feast 

with kings / Frustrated / Father stopped their speech

so I could reach in / greedily choose the choicest piece

ignore his warnings and tear at the muscle / strain

against the flesh till its elasticity slipped my fingers 

and the chunk / chillies and all slapped into my eyes.

Father thumped my back as I coughed on the pepper

/ swallow twice / he urged / dropping the wailing mess

of me on Mother's knees / What Father didn’t know 

is I imagined the key to their impenetrable talk

lay in the cubed meat and I longed to be like them

In the circle of friends I have / most of our conversations 

revolve around music / the heft and sway of the changing

world / the rapid rate of our redundance / how best 

to pretend we know it all and when beer loosens

what inhibitions are left after shredding meat 

with bare fingers / laughter cloaks our weaknesses:

our inability to provide for those we love / who love us

we who still know nothing of what our lovers want

how frightening it is to have nephews growing up

who want to be like us / who want to be like men

born in Nigeria, is an award winning poet, playwright & founder of the Midnight Run. Identity, Displacement & Destiny are reoccurring themes in his work in which he mixes the old with the new, traditional with the contemporary. His books are published by Flipped Eye, Akashic, Nine Arches & Oberon.