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Odukoya Adeniyi

His Desired Epitaph

​What I tell myself is a tale fashioned 
after God's index command; I, a boy,
like a pope rolls a sermon around his lips
to the pews aligned before the altar's
confessional array of light, I roll the wind
around my heavy eyebrows
 
& leave the moon gasping for a night 
with oxygen. life can go wrong along 
the tributary lawn of gratitude & nothing 
can seem right all again, like dense in the 
fearsome hymnal of a thick forest, like
 
fire logs clasping their flames in the 
serenade of darkness, I write like my 
mother's pain when loss incisors plunge 
through the panacea of my heart. at the 
back of my skin, someone said: your shadow
 
is hiding a knife, ready to stab light in 
whatever manner, like country birds,
like an ambush of tigers, like a constellation
of starlight, like a synagogue of sunlight,
like a forest of dead-colored graves, like a 
 
pool of dead waters, like a sky of red-bodied
clouds, like sad songs of aching memories,
like a family of dead siblings, like a desert of 
dehydrated throats, my body houses a nest
brewing unhatched dreams into a broken hope.
 
to leave isn't to say goodbye;
it's to align with the description of life &
let water shape your names into golden fishes
I leave my dream globes in the casket of God
& allow him burn them into his desired epitaph.

Biography

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Odukoya Adeniyi is an undergraduate studying English and Education at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. His poems have appeared/forthcoming in Roadrunner Review, Kissing Dynamite, Feral: Journal of Art and Poetry, Kalahari Review, Agbowo.org, and others. His poem "Food is Peace" was the winning poem of the PIN Food Poetry Prize 2018. You can reach out to him on Twitter @adeniyi_odukoya.
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ISSN 2639-426X
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  • Home
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    • Contributors List
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  • Press
  • Issues
    • Issue 25
    • Issue 24
    • Issue 23
    • Issue 22
    • Issue 21
    • Issue 20
    • Issue 19
    • Issue 18
    • Serenity
    • Issue 17
    • The Audio Room
    • Issue 16
    • Issue 15
    • Issue 14
    • Play It Again
    • Issue 13
    • Issue 12
    • Issue 11
    • Issue 10
    • Issue 9
    • Issue 8
    • Issue 7
    • Issue 6
    • Hand to Mouth
    • Issue 5
    • Issue 4
    • Issue 3
    • Issue 2
    • Issue 1
  • Submissions