Salam Wosu
ASYLUM IN YOUR BOSOM *
What is a country but a drawing of a line – Safia Elhillo
for every person I lose I carve a new country on
my lip saying to Sorrow ‘from hence you shall not pass’
there is joy like a river, pain like a sea and I, a little pebble searching
the edge of land to call my own, a threshold without a tear over its doorway
I awake most nights to your body bare beside me so much I forget
what it means to own my own, what it means to guard a boundary like a loved one
because my body is a house on fire a country racked up with so much discord
it split itself into tiny parts
Lover, the way I become whole when you hold me means the wound is but the beginning:
let there be light upon this body, I've seen so much of it
yours is the only sin I surrender to, the only border which is a cage
I return to always. My hand on your bosom, patriotic pleasure, to serve
my tongue shall utter no evil, rather trace its path along this land, water
is the only way to make a bother. The tongue has no use but to divide and conquer.
The line where our bodies meet is a border where flowers sprout
not like my country where a line is a threat, a grave where little boys & girls hold
the Earth firm, their corpses the product of a war that was meant to unite
but separated sleep from night, separated moon from Sky
& I know another country is a new way to be
a prisoner. No one is free the same way no one is free from dying
instead we get to choose our poison instead we get to choose
what shackle our hands bow to, what rain are flower drinks from
I walk to your body bare and beautiful and I place my hand
on the plane of your hilled bosom, a sojourner
Yours is the only sin I surrender to.
and for every country I lose I make another and I make another.
*including lines by Safia Elhillo
for every person I lose I carve a new country on
my lip saying to Sorrow ‘from hence you shall not pass’
there is joy like a river, pain like a sea and I, a little pebble searching
the edge of land to call my own, a threshold without a tear over its doorway
I awake most nights to your body bare beside me so much I forget
what it means to own my own, what it means to guard a boundary like a loved one
because my body is a house on fire a country racked up with so much discord
it split itself into tiny parts
Lover, the way I become whole when you hold me means the wound is but the beginning:
let there be light upon this body, I've seen so much of it
yours is the only sin I surrender to, the only border which is a cage
I return to always. My hand on your bosom, patriotic pleasure, to serve
my tongue shall utter no evil, rather trace its path along this land, water
is the only way to make a bother. The tongue has no use but to divide and conquer.
The line where our bodies meet is a border where flowers sprout
not like my country where a line is a threat, a grave where little boys & girls hold
the Earth firm, their corpses the product of a war that was meant to unite
but separated sleep from night, separated moon from Sky
& I know another country is a new way to be
a prisoner. No one is free the same way no one is free from dying
instead we get to choose our poison instead we get to choose
what shackle our hands bow to, what rain are flower drinks from
I walk to your body bare and beautiful and I place my hand
on the plane of your hilled bosom, a sojourner
Yours is the only sin I surrender to.
and for every country I lose I make another and I make another.
*including lines by Safia Elhillo
Biography
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Salam Wosu, a poet and aspiring novelist, is a Chemical Engineer from Nigeria. His works interrogate grief, depression, love, anti-chauvinism and sexuality. He was shortlisted for the Korean Nigerian Poetry Fiesta Award 2017 & 2019. His works are in or forthcoming in Glass Poetry Press, Kissing Dynamite, The Mark Literary, Rhythm & Bones, Dream Noir, Brave Voices, RIC journal and Mounting the Moon (anthology of queer Nigerian poems). He is @salam_wosu on all platforms.
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