the outing
Onlookers witnessed your wrath that night how your fist rose to the heavens,
striking down as if Ṣango lived within you. Thirty going on thirty-one. I wasn’t sure what to say.
I’ve never been here. The papers described him as tall.
They said his neck broke before he landed as if his body was a slinky, waiting
for the rest of him to hit the ground. Witnesses recall you bloodied and exhausted,
looking at your swollen knuckles saying what did I do? repetitively
as if you were a toy wound for entertaining. Uncle Elijah believes mental health is a western thing
He says back home, elders would out those who were cursed and banish them from the village. I sit with you, old friend.
We break silence with passive laughs as if we were sat with our fathers. Then silence again.
Yomi Sode
