Gbolahan Badmus

the boys with smiles the colour of mango pulp

yesterday,

they appeared daily during Iftar,

perched across our gateless front yard,

dispersing shadows with their smiles, 

the colour of mango pulp.

under the weary eye of the evening,

the messenger air spread the scent

of miyan kuka to famished noses,

as the boys swatted the day’s last flies 

from milk bowls & dried fish,

wrestled wandering goats 

from tomorrow’s meal,

traded stories of bashful glances

peering their way from distant hijabis

and of lonely strands dangling 

from their tender chins, 

whispering their arrivals as men.

but today,

their smiles have decayed,

and their minds have been made fertile 

for the abundance of crooked seeds.

now, from their fingers, like branches,

spring boughs of fire

                that chewed & spat out 

                the debris of these buildings—

                               that licked to bones, 

                               bodies bowed in prayers— 

                                              these harvests of landmines 

                                              planted like millets

                                              across unwary farmlands.

as each day ends,

the wind wails for what we’ve lost;

the windows shudder for what is to come.

and the aching moon, it bends low,

into a painful crescent,

bathing our fallow front yard

with the spectre of their forgotten smiles,

the colour of mango pulp.

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Gbolahan is a legal practitioner. His poems have been recently published or forthcoming in the Malahat Review and trampset. He resides in Canada.

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