Three Poems by Abiodun Salako
In The Lockdown, We Hate What We Are Becoming Fourth month into a pandemic begins our own/ we hate what we are becoming/ all these things called us: before and time before caught in the crossfire between a lockdown and protection/ we are stealing past skins like petty djinns/ but knowing it is not enough, we learn to isolate memories because/ you/ and i/ are sick of something/ sick with something/ the symptoms are the same/ fever/ dry cough/ tiredness/ loss of how we taste our collective/ or smell the musk is the sheets/ we burn conversations the same way we burn food/ to crisp/ you choose all the bad wine/ but I like them because your lips and mine touch the glass/ you tell me you are quite prehistoric when i touch you/ it takes me decades to shine the nape of your neck/ you and I are stuck together with the things we said/ ringing around the house like Christmas bells/ when my grandmother calls, we are in the same frame of the screen, but different walls pronounce our bodies/ we fin
