Boy With a List in His Pocket
after Divine Inyang Titus
the road to the market bends like an old man’s back & i am running
with a boy’s knees, new to ache, new to the idea that a list
is a kind of oath—salt, matches, crayfish, onions—things
that hold a house together like silence in a father’s mouth.
my mother says remember, & it sounds like a test,
so i carry her voice the way men carry names—clumsy,
heavy, unwilling to ask what they mean. i pass the trees,
each one a witness to the mornings i wanted to vanish,
to run toward the stream that stinks but sings. a madman
squats by the roadside again, smiling like the world has finally
given up on dignity. a dog comes barking, chases him off,
then returns to lick what’s left behind. i do not yet know
this is what it means to survive: to bite, to bark,
to return for what we’re meant to despise. i am learning
the rules of men by watching them not speak—they carry grief
in their knees, in the careful way they count change. the man
selling palm oil barely looks at me. the fish woman scoffs.
but the bitterleaf seller, a widow they say, gives me more
than i ask for, touches my chin like a prayer & says you look
like your father. i do not know if this is praise or prophecy.
i want to grow into something sturdy, like the road,
like my uncle’s arms when he lifts a sack without wincing.
but today, i am only a boy with dirt on his heel,
a list in his pocket & a hunger not just for food,
but for the reason men wake before dawn
and return with nothing but quiet.
Joemario Umana
Joemario Umana, Swan XVII, is a Nigerian creative writer and a performance poet who considers himself a wildflower. His works have appeared in Trampset, Strange Horizons, Isele Magazine, Lolwe, Chestnut Review, Frontier Poetry, Uncanny Magazine, Poetry Sango-Ota, Poetry Column-NND and elsewhere. He tweets @JoemarioU38615.