Unreturning

I’ve been acquainted with the night before,

But I walked out of its rain to the furthest end

I know why I did not call back or say goodbye

The music I heard with you was not my music,
The bread I broke with you was not my kind of bread;
Now that I’m no more the luminary clock on the wall
All that was once so beautiful is dead in the mind.

It is Agbozume-laga who said, he needs no interrupted cries

What dropped his eye this dawn he is unwilling to explain,

But anyone who comes to the twilight knows leaves whisper.

Once your hands touched this table, this plate and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass a dozen times
But these things do not remember you, the once beloved,
Your joy crushed out the day and our dead fear to return home.

Before his helpless sight, Agbozume-laga had dreams

You plunged at him, guttered him, choked him and drowned him

You placed his dreams behind the wagon and hang his writhed face

It’s not the landing on strange beach under a broken sky

But besides the salty herb, it was the lengthening biting sun
A heart that’s cold and wild, and doesn’t remember anything.

Please, be careful where you step; the grave is so wide.