—after the raid in the outskirts of Imo State
Our fathers’ fathers,
they say I do not carry my place well,
because it smells of blood and ruin,
the kind left behind on the departure of men with heavy guns.
Many times I do want to know what God, Chukwu Ọ̀kịké, thinks
of it, if he still remembers the love and care in
the promise he placed on its borders.
If he can see the people on it now—bashed, broken, and weary.
People with perforated lives. People with specks
of dust covering their brows. People with sores in their dreams.
People who eat their appendixes to survive. People whose sisters
and brothers never lived to see another dusk, after an
evening of flying bullets, covering the ground in red and smokes.
Sisters died in one afternoon. They had only gone to the market
for food. Their voices welling with songs were put into silence.
Brothers’ hearts became canvases of pains and fear: they were
in the field playing football until their bodies were forced to disobey
gravity. Every morning I hold the map in my hands and paint
butterflies on it, to make it easier for me to remember lost names
from the others. Last night, I saw a wallpaper of Bob Marley.
His covered dreadlocks, like a halo, made him look saintly.
Bob’s eyes reminded me of his music—so
messianic. Every one of them.
I wish to talk to him and let him know how his lyrics lay bare here:
bare like the sea; like raw, uncut scenes from a movie.
I wish to see him and listen to what he thinks of my place.
But tell me, our fathers’ fathers: am I born for this disaster?
That smells of deaths? Even Christ begged his Father to prevent
his suffering at Gethsemane. Dear God, Chukwu Ọ̀kịké, I want to
carry my place well. Or maybe you live here just for one day.
This poem is an excerpt from The Naming, published by Nebraska Press (2025).
The Naming explores the movements, excesses, and extremes of existing as a postmodern individual, connecting these experiences to ancestry. The poems in this collection examine the various ways one remains tied to their ancestors by reimagining memories, history, homesteads, migration, and the intersections of the past, present, and possible futures. Through this exploration, the collection seeks to rebuild a world that doesn’t merely replicate realities but reinvents, enshrines, and restories them.