Alẹ́ Ìgbéyàwó (Bridal Night)

By Arikewusola Abdul Awal

On my threshold, the calabash belches a tunnel.
Red earth clings to your feet, my love, as camwood
Plastered against the slightness of your skin.

Come forth, dominate this empire of passion
Where lullaby of the breeze
Lulls the oil lamp to sleep.
My body, petrichor of the first rain, un-
Furling the scent of longing upon yours,
& my lips joke a rhyme into yours. This
Language of desire needs no translation.

Let us perform this ritual:
Under my fingers, your body grubs out
Rhythms of a holy song–
Coos pouring out of a brown pigeon.

I, Moses, preach splashes of a rod
On the wave of your virgin sea,
Until the syntax of music breaks apart.

Let us repay the debt of birthing:
Earth will share the hag’s sorrow
In her longing for children on her stead.
Let us repay the debt of birthing
Before life sucks dry this cistern of lust:

If tomorrow, dawn sets out to tap wine
On the palm of passion,
Let it chew its fingers for lateness:
Our bodies are gourds of night tappers
& amidst tapping the wine under the moon,
Bride, your body ingested a kernel.

Biography

Arikewusola Abdul Awal writes from Oyo state, Nigeria. He centers his creative works on home, self-discovery, Yorùbá traditions, love, spiritualism, and more. He is an English and Literary Studies student at the Federal University Oye-Ekiti. His poems have appeared in Afritondo, Brittle Paper, Kalahari Review, Arting Arena, Eboquills, NWF journal, Spillwords, and elsewhere. He enjoys looking at the full moon.