Staring blankly
Into
Dainty doll house
A little girl dreams
Miniature teacups and saucers
Tiny pillows
The size of ‘Uncle’s” thumb
She knows
Wide-eyed she stares at them
Objects of her envy now
Sealed all round
Unfeeling
Safe from probing thumbs
A boy’s dread
In the cold abbey crypt
Young fingers forced on throbbing organs
Sheathed in pristine apparels
Hymns and canticles sonorous resound
Overhead from schoolboys’ lips
Seemingly unending like his grief
Unrelenting
Like his shame
At his passion
Stirred to serve another’s lust
Like his heart
Soiled by the sacred
Sacred yet soiled
He twirls and spins
45 dizzy seconds
Enough to make one puke
Not him
His stomach is empty
15 short seconds
He meanders through parked cars
Hands outstretched
to glasses wound
Up or down
With passengers
Smiling and unsmiling
He gets a nod here, a smile there
A scowl here,
some change here
Red, amber, green
He steps off the road
Breathless
Counts his change
120 seconds of green
And the urchin will dance again
(by Ulo Inyama)
courtesy- Abuja Literary Society
No comments:
Post a Comment