Poetry: i am becoming more & more by Sodïq Oyèkànmí
This poem flows across even its absences, emphasized in caesura. Sodïq Oyèkànmí writes into transformation with the echoes of the past and the fears of the future joining into a request for togetherness.
i am becoming more & more
like a rifle with wet gun–powder
like cowries reeking of abandoned grace
in the hands of the diviner
look this is what your absence
has done to me o mother—
o mother of my beginning
i’m terrified that what destroyed the yam
will also destroy the cocoyam
that the insistent teeth
of these axes will bow the ìrókò tree
my power- house of herbs & succour
now carved into a mute sculpture
come be with me
breathe with me in this dying world
Sodïq Oyèkànmí
Sodïq Oyèkànmí is a poet, thespian and librarian. A 2022/23 Poetry Translation Centre (UK) UNDERTOW Fellow. He holds a B.A in Theatre Arts from the University of Ibadan where he specialised in Acting and Dramaturgy. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, he won the 2022 Lagos / London Poetry Competition. His works are published/ forthcoming in LOLWE, Lucent Dreaming, Longleaf Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Passages North, Poetry Wales, Strange Horizons, and The Four Faced Liar. A wildflower who tweets @sodiqoyekan.
