1 Poem

Martins Deep

Martins Deep [he/him] is an Urhobo poet based in Kaduna, Nigeria. He is a photographer, digital artist, and currently a student of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He is a Pushcart nominee, and a Best of The Net finalist, '22. His most recent works have appeared—or are forthcoming— in Magma Poetry, Strange Horizons, FIYAH, Barren Magazine, Lolwe, 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, and elsewhere. He says hi on a newsboy hat @martinsdeep1

Then, i'd go out & pluck your graveside flower for a potpourri

& i'm back to dreaming of fairies flying backwards 

to the thorns of shrikes. of quicksand under every pew i sit.

I remember how you'd stand by the window, light me a blunt & crochet

the smoke with your needles; spiders crawling from my sleeves 

to weave cobwebs between my trembling fingers. & i'd trap you 

chords, like moths, escaping the hairlines separating my piano keys.

After failing a job interview, you once wiped my eyes with my lapel 

till i could see the silver lining you were painting on the cloud

that hovers above my head like a halo stained 

with lampblack. girl, you were the one—

the one who'd play pole dancer, freaky, on Friday nights i'm not out drinking

with ghosts, & i would see— through a green bottle— a brazen serpent.

And oh, it is that season where ellipsis must replace the heart 

in that story your secret diary reads itself in echoes— diary as an auto-epitaph.

On the doorway, i followed a trail of flowers— petals 

all familiar by their graveside scent.

Drawn by the faint whiffs of your last prayer, i'm led

to the very mass of my joy on a slow swing from the ceiling;

your body casting the shadow of a tombstone 

over where silence ate 

away the candle on your nightstand 

faster than it wanted to be milked of light.

& memory, as silver iodide, dissolves that cloud over my head,

into a flood that'll dry up to drown me

in the emptiness of skin without your love bites.