Two Poems
by Abu Bakr Sadiq
Road Map
,then .summer of end the at born was i
nothing knew i
life about lot a think i .loss about
being things wrong .things wrong the desire i .underwater
being home .home call to me for enough peaceful, cities
watching about worry to have never would i where
alleys dark the into disappear love i everything
life a of myself remind to up memories make i .death of
was softness my so & mother my lost i ,uni before .had never i
got i .city this in boy motherless only the not i'm know i .born
translate to scrambled ,alphabets—grandfather my from name my
explains which .tongue mother my in “crocodile” into
passes never it how & water for love undying my
impossible it's ,days some .unnoticed anywhere through
animal spirit my myself tell i ,others on .sleep getting
city this of bones the fill could i wish i .koala a is
.suffering of chain its break to tenderness enough with
moves home of idea my
ancestor an after name i ,forget to fail i what .river a like
body burnt a what about thinking sleep i .met never i
.mouth a grew ashes its if say would
anywhere leaving for phobia a have i
believed i ,12 at .home at feel body my makes that
until lost be to meant it everything knew i
.myself for search to were i if go i’d where asked was i
Aurora
in the wakefulness of my hunger for luminescence
i rifle through cities for lighthouses
forgetting that somewhere i’m seen
as the breath of a dragon racing through
walls of shuttered rooms. my body—
an unfinished arc of light stretching to drown darkness
out of a nightsky. in an alternate universe
my mother is still alive filling my mouth with candies
that burst open like star shells
i pretend i’m carrying their light inside me.
i tell everyone they’ve swollen into clusters of asteroids
& soon i’ll morph into a shooting star
jetting through the eye of an eclipse
with the tenderness of the hands of an archeologist
digging the ground for relics. my desire is to wake with
a robe of halo floating down my shoulders.
i want to exhale clouds of starburst when i breathe.
it happens that sometimes i am the scab of an exit wound
learning how to glow in the dark. other times
a shadow crawling its way back towards sunlight.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Abu Bakr Sadiq is a Nigerian poet. He is the winner of the 2022 IGNYTE award for Best Speculative Poetry. His work is nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Rhysling Award, and is published or forthcoming in Boston Review, Mizna, Palette Poetry, FIYAH, Uncanny Magazine, Augur Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, Covert Literary Magazine, Zone 3 Press Magazine, Iskanchi Press & Magazine, Lolwe, The Lit Quarterly, Rockvale Review, Best of New Myths Anthology, and elsewhere. He writes from Minna. Find him on Twitter @bakronline. @bakronline on Instagram.