the new testament
Michael Agunbiade
i sat on the top of a kopje
listening to a part of me on the radio.
my mother had just returned
from another war & once again
she did not survive.
the man on the radio said
i will still die
whether or not i bury the boy on my shirt.
it is nearly two years since i came out
& my room already has a memory of blood.
i guess the man i am currently fucking
must have felt the same way
he couldn’t find his hands
while his father ran a blade over him.
who would watch his son
being swallowed by a man
& not burn down a city?
drown into water a decade of ships?
it takes a man to leave home
and never return. it takes courage
to kneel on the altar of a gun
while God is watching.
yesterday a boy rode
a bike towards me
& what we did in the end was remarkable.
what do you think i mean?
that he never taught me
how to ride a bike instead
how to ride a man into a room
suppose one of us stood
in the nude of hunger
like an unlit lamppost.
suppose it is is raining
and i put out all my boats
as if its arrival was all i wanted.
listening to a part of me on the radio.
my mother had just returned
from another war & once again
she did not survive.
the man on the radio said
i will still die
whether or not i bury the boy on my shirt.
it is nearly two years since i came out
& my room already has a memory of blood.
i guess the man i am currently fucking
must have felt the same way
he couldn’t find his hands
while his father ran a blade over him.
who would watch his son
being swallowed by a man
& not burn down a city?
drown into water a decade of ships?
it takes a man to leave home
and never return. it takes courage
to kneel on the altar of a gun
while God is watching.
yesterday a boy rode
a bike towards me
& what we did in the end was remarkable.
what do you think i mean?
that he never taught me
how to ride a bike instead
how to ride a man into a room
suppose one of us stood
in the nude of hunger
like an unlit lamppost.
suppose it is is raining
and i put out all my boats
as if its arrival was all i wanted.
Michael Agunbiade is a young Nigerian poet who writes from the small hole of his room. His works have appeared or forthcoming in Afrimag, Brittle Paper, Bodega, The Shore Poetry, Writer Space Africa, Kalahari Review & elsewhere.
© Variant Literature Inc 2023