(A Poem in 3 Steps)

I

Monday morning in Brooklyn is
Not monday morning in Lagos
But it is close

This place where we meet is neither
There nor here nor bad dreams made up
But we are Here

Which is what I tried to say too, saying
Everything is as close; my hand
It reaches yours

Orphaned in our common neglect
Stranded in our parallel pasts
We are here now

 

II

everything is disheartening or
reassuring depending

connected to no recognizable
belief or country
even family

that inconceivable loneliness
being neither this
nor that, I am continually

qualitatively disemboweled
your opinions do not hold but
your quantity terrifies

this tool you hold in your reach
proving nearness and distance
my nerves can no longer take

between the enjoyment of an embrace
and that sudden shove is this sinking
self-knowledge

the ground continually shaken
I am continually changed

 

III

So I say, now in Brooklyn, we
Remember differently- Lagos
And it was hot

And everywhere I see you pass
And see myself in your eyes
No longer, no

Our recognizance is this mere
Act of forgetting, which you take
And it is good

Arrived thus in oppositional wants
Let me converse with you.