SONG OF A BROKEN LANGUAGE

SONG OF A BROKEN LANGUAGE

Snake sloughs. An owl hoots:

My life is creeping into oblivion.

A boy runs into me and shrieks—

His father warns him I’m a plague.

His mother says, “don’t stretch Yorùbá

On your tongue, it is not worth your taste.”

This boy spells me as grunge. I enter

His mouth & he lacerates his tongue

Until it atones for its slip with bruised water.

Call this boy a snail that deserts its shell

& crawls into the blue skin of the Pacific.

Will a snail in the water become a fish?

Call the shell a museum of wits. Say,

Ọmọ tó sọ'lé nù, ó so àpò ìyà kọ́.

Meaning a snail that jettisons its shell

Drags itself to the satchel of death.

This boy chameleons his tongue until

It shape-shifts into an abyss of colours,

Of languages. He casts me into oblivion.

Tell this boy he may deny me

With the subtleness of his tongue, & he

May slough his skin with strange lotion, but

The spring of the blood running in his vein,

Alas, he can’t afford to deny.