For Wreckage in our Bones
After Olabisi Abiodun Akinwale
i.
of twilight – when the day withdraws
we’ll seek home behind clustered voice
it is how to let go of what won’t stay
because the night is a succor for broken boys
because these portraits hold names beyond our reach.
ii.
of raindrops – relapsing into storm
we’ll watch wreckage slip into our bones
it is how we become immune to broken cries
because we are now bodies holding the hands of war
because we are now tenants under the shade of grief.
Oyekunle Ifeoluwa Peter is an award-winning Nigerian poet and spoken word artiste. His poems have been featured in and forthcoming on Kalahari Review, Aceworld Magazine, Echelon Review, AFAS Review, and several anthologies. Whenever he is not writing poems or performing poetry on cold evenings, he is either teaching chemistry to random kids or finding home in piano keys. He presently writes from Leeds, United Kingdom.
Statement by Faetured Artist, Shelley Thomas: I hear notes of inevitability in the speaker’s voice. Recognition of a shared pain, grief, things broken. The line “how to let go of what won’t stay” lingers in my mind. I imagine what might be beyond reach. I see the hollows of raindrops in sand, the weight of heavy rain, wet wings soaked in inevitability. I think of what is to come: cooling air, tiny teeth of frost.
Art: “Autumn’s Arrival,” 2016 (Lake Ontario, Canada)