Raindrops, spilling

What fragile buds kneel at the throat of this flower?

dew-drops lying in waiting to blossom. dandelions,

scattered around the feet of white weeds.

is it hypocrisy? the way tenderness melts

like sugar cubes in coffee? the way what holds

beauty can also clamp onto ugliness like coffins?

this city once sang. this city was once a lighthouse of lyrics.

& when music dies in the mouth, don’t the lips

become a mortuary of notes? doesn’t rhythm,

milled like peppercorns,

stray into a sonata of slowed movements?

today in ikeja, commonmen gather like ants

in front of their leader’s sweet tooth. break into rows

like schoolchildren. drop their egos at the front door

along with their slippers. a man doesn’t strap pride

on his buttocks when hunger grows like grass inside

of him. from a small bush snailing into shelter,

there are children spilling themselves like raindrops

in search of grasshoppers; tying thin ropes

on the helm of their ripped wings.

their mothers said things like this make kids happy.

i sighed instead. in pursuit of joy,

how many things have we left with sadness?

Saheed Sunday, NGP V, is a Nigerian poet, a Star Prize awardee, a Pushcart nominee, a Best of the Net nominee, Best Small Fictions nominee, an HCAF member, and a poetry reader at Chestnut Review. He has been published in Palette Poetry, Strange Horizons, Lucent Dreaming, North Dakota Quarterly, etc.