Before the end came,
Before war took my sister’s face
When my mother still knew smiles,
The way birds know the art of flight
The land we walked
Gave us its fruit & fullness
When home was still
A place to offer the body rest
When my father never left
With the season
When my sister still dragged air
Down her lungs
I never walked into the palm
Of what craved for my body
&, I am still here,
Which means: everything that aimed
For my breath left with the wind
& My friend left with the wind, too
& My brother never returned
From the fields
To watch his brother grow
To fit into his shoes
Ayiyi Joel is a budding Nigerian poet from Edo state in Nigeria. He has works published/forthcoming in The Beatnik cowboy, Synchronized chaos, Rough Cut Press, Paper Crane, African Writers Mag and elsewhere.
