Let’s say it this way or that way,
My Country is famous for displaced
children who found home in the haven
of bridges. Each time, I see their shirtless
bodies scurry around the bridge, puffing
fumes of cigarettes.
The atmosphere cradles the emotions
I fail to conceal. Why don’t we admit that
everything is wrong in this place. That a miracle
is yet to sprout amid the cankerworms that eat the land.
until now, no rehab for the children of the bridge.
I peer at my country through the binoculars
of a needle, peer again through the lens of a hawk, It’s all the same.
My Country is as good as blind to realize
that which kills her slowly.
The children litter the street— unfed; straying;
eyes scanning for food; bones
shimmering in the dialect of hunger.
A child is strung round the throat of a radio
for every sad news it blares.
What news has blessed our ears if not the
cadaver of a child lynched for pilfering.
Or another child cleared by a vehicle
in a bid to outrun a raging mob.
Let’s say it this way or that way—this is my Country—
a museum of dead-forgotten children.
Should we exalt a country whose glory radiates in the
light of everything grief?
The roads in my Country are sealed with the bones
of children. This is how they become forgotten artefacts.
We assume it’s the fastest
way they meet & dine with God relieved