大象传媒

ABEOKUTA
by TOLU OGUNLESI

This is where we played the final match.

The birds and the pollen are gone.
But the goal-post stones stand,
tombstones unmoved by time, or grief
marking the places where life became mere air
and bruised skin became earth,
and where the future has become
a lighter version of the past.

Tomorrow, or the day after,
I'll drive by our Wembley, beneath the mango tree
that will still continue to bear fruit, long after
those it fed have moved on
to feed children and worms.

In time footpath and grass will learn to banter and haggle,
and the footprints that insisted
on a back-and-forthing amongst the bungalows
will learn to carve new paths
to the world
to the sea
to the cemetery

to a future that has forgotten the past, or is perhaps
merely a new past, wiper of the old.