What the Desert and the Sea Need to Know
Tell the desert you are not coming back as a homeless, or
As a lifeless body rejected by sea, or even as hopeless man
Declined by barbed border, told by the “Rendorseg Police”
To go back to where they are coming from, tell the desert
That you are coming back as a tourist with camera on your neck,
With enough water and food, not olive and dry breads anymore.
Tell the sea you are not coming back as water; flesh washed away by chaos,
Bone crushed by whales, body dismembered and perforated skull,
Not even as log renounced by the sea bed, tell the sea you are coming
With your family on a picnic, not with rags anymore but
With silk and the clothing of time, not as a beggar but as a giver,
Tell the sea to give you some months, some years, you even do not know actually.
Fasasi Abdulrosheed Oladipupo is a Nigerian poet and a Veterinary Medical Student, whose first love is art making. His works have been featured or are forthcoming in The Night Heron Barks, Poesis Literary Journal, Praxis Magazine, The Citron Review, 433 Magazine, WriteNow Lit, Stand Magazine (University of Leeds), Louisiana Literature, Olongo Africa, Obsidian: Literature and Art of African Diaspora, Kissing Dynamite, BBPC July 2019 anthology and elsewhere.