by Abdulrosheed Fasasi Oladipupo
origin of hate
slavery is a bad idea. (jericho brown)
it brought night to the room of history,
it pushes us into the questions of wrong or right,
yesterday i had to uproot every lily in my garden
they remind me of cannons, short guns, mirrors and vases
and how they are worth more than my fathers.
slavery is a very bad idea, it is the origin of all hatred,
it ruined the person of sea, and made moth into the poetry of grief,
every father that died turned dove, soiling the doves’ reputation;
birds hovering with odes to the home they cannot be,
ask me what it did to me. it cast dark spells unto every line of my poetry;
i should be writing a poem for my unborn daughter; faatimah
but here i am, retelling the tales of my great-grandmother; faatimah
caught on her way to the stream by lord henry and the slavers,
i do not know what to tell this daughter about her great-grandmother;
who was moon, only one night left never to come back.