FLOURISH JOSHUA
look, Lord
for Olúwabámisé, Dr. Chinelo & 98 others
brother, gaze into the map—
there’s a cliché chewing into the lungs
of each state. see if Judas really died
from that hanging, see if there is
no moth up there, stomaching
the constitution for itself. see if
the Twitter threads will sew the shards
of our broken songs. see if Jehovah is
not at the precipice of giving the pillars
of his mercy to a collapse. daily our eyes
are born again, to sorrows wilder
than the world—you wake with elegies
pillowing under your head, eyes
pregnant with oceans of grief, the body
unsure of what it wants to do
with the soul of its owner. Olúwa-
bámisé, see, the Lord comes before the
suffix, before the cry for help—but your
countrymen came before you, unscrewed
you like mechanics in the search
for spare parts. Dr. Chinelo,
Nigeria was the train that drove you
into the mouth of a bullet. look, Lord,
on the face of my country is gun powder
& the blood of my brothers drooping
on its lips. nothing here is wearing
the shape of your grace, nothing here is
taking the semblance of your mercy. I beg
to ask that you undress your body of
its goodness on your second coming—
you may be crucified again.
*with a line from Ogaga Ifodowo’s Our Eyes Are Born Again.
Flourish Joshua is a Nigerian poet & member of the Frontiers Collective.