Elixir  by Famia Nkansa (Ghana)

When you touch me

My pores turn to pupils

I can see you in the crevices of my skin

You leave footprints under my eyelids

Your soles azonto on my irises

I touch my face

breathing your taste into my fingers, your fear into my fury

I cup fireflies in my palms

Cradling them as they flicker

on and off…on and off…

There is residue from us

Glued together

Like tape to paper

If the earth splits

wide like a plum squished in the sun

Will the rays reflect the thin-veined blood

smeared like grease on the cusp of the sky

The threadbare frays of cumulus clouds

The simper of thunder whispering air into the

mouths of shooting stars

If the earth cracks

like a spread-eagled spine

florid, translucent as the dew

gliding

down the underside of a grape

the limpid drop

poised

crouched

gone.

And the earth rips,

split, like an expanse of belly

will you

still

traverse

the ends

of the horizon

to bathe

in the

oasis

of my tongue?

WOMEN LOVERS by Salawu Olajide (Nigeria)

She first said her biology was failing, and then her look, then her smile, then her feeling, then her heart. We look at each other on the rocking chairs. Listen, she says. The tube of her mouth holds something venal and serious. We long for each other. Finally. The finally comes as if it is the only intended word in the middle of the phrasing. She has a way of meaning her adverb. Did you moan on each other’s thigh ‘cept for sex? She says nothing but a nod which means yes. The sun seems to be gossiping through the window, I unhinge the curtain and let darkness swallow us. There are things they must not know. I whisper some calmness into her heart. She adjusts her gown and shows the part of her breast where she last kissed her. It is as if I have never loved before.