EDE

Jide Badmus

I.

The night wears hijab.

The sun wakes on a minaret.

The breeze speaks with an accent

naïve & musical like the voices of

early morning pap sellers

competing with crowing cocks.

II.

Your skin is laden with the scars

of your struggle with civilization.

Your roads sit like beggars, palms

cupped, waiting for a miracle of asphalt

but you flogged foreigners

who came bearing gold.

Your hospitality is a suspicious bird on

electric wires upheld by crooked poles.

III.

The sonorous rhythms of your pestles

make hearts pound with excitement.

At lunchtime, Wonsebolatan is like a

selling petrol station during scarcity—

hungry men queue for wraps of

pounded yam & goat meat vegetable.

In the evening, ablution kegs are

swapped for gulps of palm wine

& eyes are shown the

secrets of the purdah!

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Jide Badmus is an engineer, a poet inspired by beauty and destruction; he believes that things in ruins were once beautiful. He is the author of There is a Storm in my Head; Scripture; Obaluaye (FlowerSong Press, 2022); and several chapbooks.What Do I Call My Love for Your Body, forthcoming from Roaring Lion Newcastle (September, 2022). He was nominated for Pushcart Prize in 2021. Badmus has curated and edited anthologies such as Vowels Under Duress; Coffee; Today, I Choose Joy; and How to Fall in Love. He is founder, INKspiredNG, Poetry Editor for Con-scio Magazine, and sits on the board of advisors for Libretto Magazine. Jide writes from Lagos, Nigeria. He tweets @bardmus

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