by Nnadi Samuel

Published in Issue No. 285 ~ February, 2021
 

Crooked shadows leaking landmines,

the breeze beneath is everything to pet a war.

here, nature winks at us unarmed

& a pothole waylays her cheek.

 

we made every spray a yellow hit,

no cash crop escaped a bruise.

 

we have most of our cherished events this way:

in places where we bend our virgin bodies into landmarks.

a branch calls me to space,

the chemistry here is badly behaved.

 

this is where we skydive into canary objects,

dripping bloodshot bitumen into barren farms.

where we dice the unnecessary acres of our body into blunt fonts.

where we perch so high,

the entire world becomes a spreadsheet for ants & butt sketches.

 

on mud houses, snakes denied household chores & hisses,

heaven felt so near, our stench could damn rapture & scam a god into them.

 

we unrolled a tissue of cloud in between our thighs,

& this became their first duet with our buttocks.

 

the moon limes our body into a native sour,

& the vein beneath our hip bone jerks uncontrollably.

 

there is a miracle here science is yet to unravel.

we made every spray a yellow hit,

no cash crop escaped, without a bruise.

 

 

 

account_box More About

Nnadi Samuel holds a B.A in English & literature from the University of Benin. His works have been previously published in Suburban Review, Seventh Wave Magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, PORT Magazine, The Cordite Poetry Review, Gordon Square Review, Rough Cut press, Trampset, Rigorous Magazine, Blue Nib journal, Stonecrop Review, The Elephant Magazine, Lunaris Review, Inverse Journal, Canyon Voices, The Collidescope, Journal Nine, Liquid Imagination, Subterranean blue poetry, The Quills, Eunoia Review & elsewhere. He won the Canadian Open Drawer contest 2020. He won the Splendor of Dawn Poetry Contest April 2020, got shortlisted in the annual Poet's Choice award & was the second-prize winner of the EOPP 2019 contest. A longlist of the NSPP 2020 prize, & Pushcart Nominee. He is the author of "Reopening of Wounds". He reads for U-Right Magazine. He tweets @Samuelsamba10.