Iheoma Uzomba
When your Body outruns a Country
this is love-making/ and you must not moan
percussively/ must not let your music
outplay the blues/ for this is how we beat
the world/ silently like chest-thumping
only I mistake your fingers/ for blades
in the dark/ and oh, hunny, this is how
you thrust the fear of every new Nigeria
out of your bones/ harder, harder
until you're all red with regrets/ until
this is no longer a blue film/ and you're
halfly whole on the porcelain floor/ gathering
what breaths remain from your blood pool.
percussively/ must not let your music
outplay the blues/ for this is how we beat
the world/ silently like chest-thumping
only I mistake your fingers/ for blades
in the dark/ and oh, hunny, this is how
you thrust the fear of every new Nigeria
out of your bones/ harder, harder
until you're all red with regrets/ until
this is no longer a blue film/ and you're
halfly whole on the porcelain floor/ gathering
what breaths remain from your blood pool.
Biography
Iheoma Uzomba is currently a student of English and Literary Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Aside from losing herself to literary pieces and travelling from world to world in the books she reads, she takes writing to be lifestyle. Her works are featured or are forthcoming in Lit break, Fact-Simile Editions, Dreich Magazine, The Muse (a creative and critical print journal) and elsewhere.
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