You had mangos alone
The whole of last year
It purged you in June
You never steered clear
I asked you why
You said it was sweet
Sweet things make us cry
Not in this case, you snapped
Yesterday was January’s last
The bloom, of good mango days
Your fridge reminds me of a washed-up pot
Never knew mangos too, had Lenten days
Before you empty your pretty tank
Crying for trees that will not grow back
Take this and eat, it’s yet another fruit
Look in your garden, if you want more to eat
Tomorrow I’ll bring you a lemon
Just so you don’t purge on this one again
Tastes nasty I know, but you’ll get used to it
Black coffee with time also tastes sweet
Cut
Cut,
Cut,
Cut me well,
Till I am
no more
a
t
r
e
e.
Make sure
too,
to burn
me so
good,
As ash
for your stove,
So you can
see me no more.
But when you
find me next
year,
In
e v e r y
forest
a r o u n d,
Don’t ask me
“how?”
My wooden ash,
will make love
to the earth,
and tomorrow
give,
twin birth of
T
r
e
e
s
you
can
never
ever
Cut.
I did not forget
I did not forget you on the lawn
Like the footprints we discard,
On sands of journeys past,
I did not delete you from my chip,
Like the virus we disinfect,
From our old memory cards,
What I did was fumigate,
The creeping things you left
In the castles of my mind,
Perhaps it was wrong for me
Not to have left you there,
Maybe I was a big fool
Not to disinfect you away,
But in these rainy days,
I’m glad I have a home,
Where no snakes exist
to bite, when you arrive.
Tonye Willie-Pepple from Bonny Island, Rivers State, writes Poetry, Drama and Fiction, in 2013 he won the PEN Nigeria/Saraba Prize for poetry, he is an alumnus of the Fidelity International Creative Writing Workshop, he lives in Port-Harcourt,Nigeria.
BlackBoyReview… In the land of telling and showing…
