Affinity & Other Poems
Affinity
in an ordinary way of life
i emerged from a bowel
of prayers,
that shape-shifted into
a talisman round my father’s neck,
the moon made an anthesis of me on earth
& my face turned a map to the lineage of my country,
growing alongside me
in pages of my grandfather’s memoir,
a synonym of an old religion tells me
i am a roaring firefly dropping lessons on earth
like sybarite attached to water,
i made bubbles an affinity,
with my heart glowing to
hymns of nombre de dios, the name of god.
Portraiture Of A New Race
a hybrid by birth,
high on hopes of rejoining a human race,
my skin is flesh,
mind not the cracks,
they’re pasts of a hostile country,
I’m only mirrored in a tranquil plain.
god, nods in affirmation when i say I’m preserved for posterity,
& others believe my mind carved from a nightfall,
births new stars.
Self-Portrait of a Pilgrim
labelled a jinx in the galaxy
of mortals—my suffering is
penance for a grey hunt. i
used the innocent as seedlings
planted in my vineyard, trusted
the moon orbs, the gods saw
it all, they’re witness to the
sacrilege my conscience soiled
red. the law never caught me, i
was dusky on a colour chart. buried
in my mouth are flowers from a cypress tree,
a hint of heaviness that trail me
in body and soul. my stars deserted me
and fell from sky—my
eyes lost ambience and turned a dark sea
the pilgrimage is my wild card, to my mother
who lives on the other side. her thumbs are
my hope, their caresses will usher me
the arrival of rainbows.
Aeesha Abdullahi Alhaji is a poet whose works have appeared/forthcoming on The Beatnikcowboy, Tampered Press Journal, Synchronized Chaos, The Blue Minaret Journal, The Open Collective Magazine, Last Leaves Magazine, Rio Grande Review and elsewhere. She is a member of the Prestigious Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation, Minna Literary Society and a resident-fellow of the Ebedi International Writer’s Residency.
