Nosediving
Give me the box hanging with dreams
with a keyhole for light,
Or give me the changing sky that I mistook
for meaning.
Give me the love I made in August equal
to the rain in effect.
Give me the streetlight with the letter of my body.
Give me back the time I waited for you
forever to come/ when you'd rather be picked up
in a green Honda;
But take your white church out of me I would
worship you as God no more.
Take signs on the street where I was reckless,
happy and wrecked/
But if you called me today I would come freely
I would crawl
out of the ocean for candle that I make when
you melt
me, I would marry the shrapnel that you became
in my chest.
My vow was to love you until the ocean runs dry,
It promised every teardrop that makes the ocean boil.
Rabiu Temidayo writes from Lagos. Author of Daylight (2018) on Ghost City Press. His works have either appeared or are soon appearing on isacoustic press, Merak Magazine, Riggwelter journal, Picaroon Poetry, Nightingale & Sparrow, Agbowo, Kalahari review, African Writer, the Gerald Kraak Award Anthology, Amethyst Review, 20.35 Africa Journal etc. His poems often appear under the pseudonym Visar. Twitter: @rabiutemidayo.
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