We know what the night is thinking. These noises of pestles
hitting mortars are loud enough to echo home. To echo all
the memories we never learnt to force down with strong
morsels of pounded yam. Mom says white is heaven.
And we have stored up enough of them in our belly
like archangels. Mom says white is divine. And we have
gulped down enough of it to make us gods. Father says
white is history. And we can see those pasts. Through
the feverish faces of the lumps of yams scattered
in our mortars like pebbles. Here, we have learnt
to never pick food that finds its way to the ground.
There are no coincidences with nature. That is the earth
working its ways to fix crumbs into the bellies of our
forefathers. Spirits whispering like good news into the ears
Of the land. Saying, here it is: here is your own portion
of these strong morsels. We tap wine like little graces into
our kegs and drink ourselves to stupor. But plantation
is trembling down its feet, and we are the fear. Its neck
droops down like a question mark, and we are the sickle.
If growth were to be a dairy product, some of us would be
lactose intolerant. We bend through harvests like acrobats
and wonder why we still fall short of belly-filled palms.
Drained feet. Hungry stomachs. How do we remember
our forefathers now if we keeping losing our strong morsels
to feeble attempts at preservation?
Saheed Sunday, NGP V, is a Nigerian poet, a Star Prize awardee, a 3xPushcart prize nominee, a Best of the Net prize nominee, Best Small Fictions prize nominee, an HCAF member, and a poetry reader at Chestnut Review. He won the Poetry Archive Now Contest, Centrestage competition, Lagos Poem Project, Quramo Poetry Prize, ZODML Poetry Prize and was a runner-up for The Nigeria Prize for Teen Authors. He was also shortlisted for the Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Award, Wingless Dreamer Poetry Prize, and The Breakbread Literacy Project. He has his works in Palette Poetry, Lucent Dreaming, Lolwe, Strange Horizons, Trampset, North Dakota Quarterly, The Deadlands, Shrapnel Magazine, Rough Cut Press, The Temz Review, Brittle Paper, Poetry Column, Off Topic Publishing, Eunoia Review, and elsewhere. In 2018, he was shortlisted for the Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange. He can be reached on Twitter @saheedtsunday, or Instagram @_saheedsunday.