By: Bamidele Aiyejina

Like a billion frozen hellos
awaiting the warm blanket of a hi,
I’ve been kin to
the foxtrot of silence,
static,
& the assaulting images of
lapping currents.

It is the carcass of dawn
and the curious croaks of
a raven floods this silence,
perhaps like me it longs
for its pair.

Nothing responds in the broken sky.
It’s been three years, every day is long
& stretched like the paddles on your chest
when you swallowed the lagoon.