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Two poems by Adenle Iyanuoluwa Deborah

Adenle Iyanuoluwa Deborah

portal / credit: de
portal / credit: de

It’s never enough but it’s plenty:

it bore other names,

one title different from the next, i

can’t hold on to the shadows.

so, i spelt it as mother. As yeshua.

              As boy. As poetry.

Taking shapes

of     the     sea     as      a           knot,

           of           a mouth in stitches, kneeling,

of a            heart not accustomed to munching the

gloom     my mother splashes    on    apl   ate for me.

sometimes, void                                                is a kind

of shape too.

I am unmoved.                                          I am moved

by the homes I find in cracks of walls.

Hands dipped in hot àkúùkù soup is

how I remember my mother’s warmth most.

There’s a kind of love, so I have heard.

Your kind of love will be questioned,

                                     so I have been told.

I do not understand God and He is home.

I do not understand my mother and she is home.

I do not understand this body well and I call it

home too. Another           kind of void.

it’s an apostle with guidelines of

how to be a plethora of butterflies.

(àkúùkù — a kind of soup from Ondo, Nigeria)

how i remember it:

a threefold twine        not

breaking easily gathers wilted red roses in a mug,

when the war first broke out

we lost our language for a morsel of kindness,

and tried to pray away the color of our skin. this is

how i remember it.

i ask my sister how memories work. she gasps like

the sunflower betrayed by the dew at dusk. asks in a

tone in need of honey, what have you taken from me?,

what have i lost name for?            my body on a tour as

the news of a noose        an unkept lighthouse,

capitalism bearing down on me, I, my teeth clamped

hard. sometimes, i think about the many ways to

endure home. other times, i think about which is

harder to please: God or you?

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Adenle Iyanuoluwa Deborah

Adenle Iyanuoluwa Deborah is a poet and a writer. Her work has appeared on Kalahari Review, Africanwriter, and forthcoming in other literary journals. Her poem, ‘Why I have flowers growing from the corners of my mouth’ came fourth in the Sevhage/Angya Poetry Prize 2019. She writes from Osun, Nigeria. She tweets and read other people's tweets at @teleayo_.

Author: Adenle Iyanuoluwa Deborah Tags: poetry Category: Poetry November 8, 2019

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Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

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