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.
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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