Fuck / Diacritics

after Inua Ellams 

The florist, tiring of wilting its flowers,

burns the forests whole. It’s spring again, & we pluck

our sisters’ torsos from pikes like unripe avocadoes;

saplings shredded before blossoming. Another quad

of years, & I’m fondling my voter’s card, thinking

how were diacritics be fucked, Yoruba for back &

teeth & egg would share the word eyin. & lord, how

often are diacritics fucked. How often our govt &

homeland–back & fang–backbites, runs

its talons through our trust. Like eggs, an empty

promise–hinging on (man)ifestoes–breaks

as it drops to the ground. Home, far from being

the trenches, is the battleground itself; ever

blossoming field lush with blood & bones. Josh

Billing says when you strike ‘ile,’ stop boring… 

& I’m thinking dude doesn’t comprehend ilé is in

my mother’s dialect home. & lord, strike me dead

or open, as Moses’s rod on the rock, if we’ve not

already been bored clean through by ilé, grey hope

running out of the bottom. Somewhere in the fog,

my mother tongue is curling its wings home

-wards, language feathering back to ilé to roost,

only to find a nest burning, burning,

ushering us in for a yellow flame bath.

*Poetry Translation Centre & Book Buzz Foundation Project