This suite of poems is a tripod, nestling lines with the potency of red-hot coals. The poems might smell like your fondest memories of love and replay your wrestling matches with anxiety and faith issues, but one thing is certain, they will warm your heart and ignite your muse. You will deeply admire the dexterity with which Boloere Seibidor collects delicate words, molds, and breathes life into them, before making them transcribe the emotions which are difficult to process. No doubt, these poems are magic in verses!

– Editorial Team

rebirth

for Malaika

my mind frolics around the prospect of your being, births images that give beauty a name

& i imagine: a farm of gardenia, sprinkling fragrance over dusty air, the beneath the horizon

where the sun burns into a gauche of orange-ish hues. i think of a copulation between stars who

scatter seeds across a bedding of deep blue. of a bird trapped in god’s fingers, of a miracle

kissing his lips. paint roses & daffodils & butterflies & canaries / carve poetry from your

tenderness. existence of all we’ve become tangles in an electric meld of a blusterous wind

& kindled heatstroke.

nightly, you return as everything the wind ships in its breath, plant a bird of longing

on my shoulders from where a gospel reaches your ears. i play on days into days

like notes crumbling off from alicia’s piano / bury a sonnet in my fingers & flick it at you

in the middle of a dream, where you are a crow, winging away all my fears. why is fear the only

nightmare that guises in humanlike form, & love a dream in comatoseness? here, everything

that bleeds beauty is a metaphor. forever, i could go on like a nightingale,

tweeting melodies from the art of you loving a broken body. you spill secrets in a smile, & it flows

unrestrainedly into a soft stream where we lie, side by side, you pulling my braids, wrapping

your thumb around it, & i locking my index in a dark ring of hair on your chest; an engagement, a

promise neither spoken nor sung. you come as calm as a sea; blow away all doubts as fiercely

as its tides. & time finds a way to bury us in a second, the second time i’m seduced into your cold

burning clasp; warmer than the flicker that boots an eternal flame, effortless as the hums that

spring between us, tender the night a sparkly ambience. you are here, like a miracle tossed from

god’s currency, like a fossil of magic, like everything left of a storm, weaving my insecurities

into haystack. in the heat of a sunless day, where you hold me as a religion, steadfast & unhesitatingly,

we both know there is no remedy for love. no awakening from this sweet, delightsome death.


how dawn compels to welcome anxiety

today, i wake with the deadweight of barrenness

in my belly. my punctured eyes begin their ejaculation & i sweep

the wetness in the invisible crevices of my arms. the silence perpetrated

only by a cock’s crowing is a cornucopia of dirges that unfurl

into my ears, explode box of memories & recount the footfall of

people’s parting. it is too early to be festooned in gloom, a voice as

chimerical as it is real, rebuffs in a tone that sets fire to a heap of hay,

like there is a time of day when i am permitted to let this sadness

saturate me. i run my fingers along the sides of my lips,

attempt to zip in melancholia as sharp as a seagull’s beckoning.

the ashing of a single layer of this unwelcome grief is all i ask for.

but sometimes, the sky breaks into dawn with the proclamation of

thunderclaps & gloomy downpours, instead of the gaiety of sunshine,

as if to say that it, too, is still learning the art of joyfulness.


amen, and everything we say after prayer

after Taofeek Ayeyemi

amen to the prayers sprinkled over the bloody feast
of dead bodies in Kano State. to fathers burying their
sons, anointing their graves with teardrops. to the
heartrending outcry of empty bellies in ghettos.

amen to the prayers of lost girls finding dwelling
in their own bodies, nesting in the presupposition
of being made in the likeness of God; of divinity.
to the boys whose voices have been silenced

under the veil of manhood. amen to the half-eaten
smile on my mother’s face each time she combs through
her bag for offering. to the bluesy tranquility that true
friendship offers. to the homeless children building

sandcastles. amen to the prayers trying to find wings
truncated by anxiety. to the nights branded by the
music of quietude. amen to the prayer that I gaze into
a mirror without cursing my maker. to the hope

that wimpish boys grow to lead armies. to the winsome
sound of babies’ laughter. to the wine flutes clinking in
tune to future conquests. to dreams remolding into
flesh. to every prayer I forget to say; amen & amen.

About the Author

Boloere Seibidor is a Nigerian poet & writer, with works in numerous magazines/journals. She emerged winner of the Glassdoor Poetically Written Prose Contest 2020. She is greatly inspired by true-life experiences, music; especially of Ed Sheeran & James Bay. She tweets @ boloere_sod