i was born with a dead dialect sewn to my skin
having a specialty for its translation.
a dragon shelters in my house and my room
is always a furnace leveled down.
the boy in the mirror sees, first, a scarcity
before his mother
makes him a supper of bone flakes with a bowl
of salt water.
how closed is my mouth when i yell grief
out of my sweat.
my mother rebukes me for mingling in the dark–
i complain i was christened with it.
today, i fling tailored lungs threaded with silence.
the underside of my lips is rancorous.
the origin of rot is history & my mother takes
a shiver to the stream making all footsteps
thump back as a howl.
Header photograph © Monica Denevan.
Wale Ayinla is a Nigerian poet, essayist, and editor. He is a Best of the Net and Best New Poets Award nominee, and his works appear or are forthcoming on Adroit, Rhino Poetry, Winter Tangerine, SAND, Palette Poetry, Connotations Press, Waccamaw, Glass Poetry, Existere and elsewhere. He is @Wale_Ayinla on Twitter.