My Son  by Adhiambo Agoro (Kenya)      

Fruit of my womb

I beg to stay away

And let you build bridges

To carve sculptures of our souls

To read invisible lines of Holy books

To find meaning in meaningless lines

And hope from tombs left for so long

Mother will be back

Let me find one like us, for us to become one

As your spine gives your body posture

So does the rhythm of our blood play upright music?

You are my last winter bird

My twins gave hope

My smile gave pride

But we’re little termites with big hearts

We need our scraggy feet for paths we haven’t crossed

Let me find one like us, for us to become one

The roses of our hearts have a charity case

The sidelines of our thoughts need ironing

We consume a variety of edibles to keep ourselves strong

It is a hard claim to live up to, Son

I recall your baby steps

And maps you left on the seabed after a longer drought.

Our change is forbidden but still

Let me find one like us, for us to become one

I will write these lines on paper

For the crowd to listen to our acapella

My name was lonely

Your father’s name was pain

We covered your eyes from the world

For us to clean the dirt under our nails

Your life is a yearned cliché

I cry

Let me find one like us, for us to become one

We have few pieces of joy

Will we suffocate on these solitary streets?

No Son. We need history and tales

For kisses woke up the Queens and portions made Kingdoms sleep

Hold my hand to seal these words

Feel the scent from unseen paradises

As we beseech the mercies of prayer and faith

Let me find one like us, for us to become one.

Like Scented Mangoes    by Arinze Ifeakandu (Nigeria)

I used to like the quiet in this place

Both of us

Seated under the mango tree

Sipping our tea in paper cups

Mum used to come and check on us

—Don’t climb up the mango tree, she said

But after she left you sprinted up

Agile as a monkey

And climbed branch after branch

The sunlight bathing you in the finest gold

And between us the scent of rotting mangoes

I was the fearful little one

Who watched with longing from below

As, balanced on a sturdy branch, you stared down at me

And smiled—You see? You see?

And then, clambering down, we stood side by side

Watching the sunset turn all bloody red

We have grown up too quickly

And I have traveled the world

Tokyo, Japan

Accra, Ghana

America, Everywhere

I have returned to this place

Where the silence now gnaws like rats’ teeth

Gentle-gentle, coolly-coolly

Between us, distance like scented mangoes

Mum’s grave white and marble

Behind the shrubs

Where once we lay side by side

And tasted the fading tea on each other’s tongue

Hands lingering at certain places

Your breath on my neck like warm-water air—

In Memory of a Loving Mother

—Memory like a frozen smile on a fading picture

Like childhood music at Sunday School

La lala

I look up and the flowers are budding between green leafs

Two paper cups lie buried in sand and twigs

I squat to pick them up

But I pick only dust.