Brief History
(duplex, after Jericho Brown)
Women suffer great hardships in times of conflict and the women of the Niger Delta are no exception …
~C. Ihayere, D.F. Ogeleka, T. I. Ataine, "The Effects of the Niger Delta Oil Crises on Women Folk."
~C. Ihayere, D.F. Ogeleka, T. I. Ataine, "The Effects of the Niger Delta Oil Crises on Women Folk."
My body is the Delta's sinuous neck.
The way things latch on.
Things latch on
To my history brief as day’s kept promise.
Briefly, my history is a day’s promise
Kept by the lush mouth of a river.
My mouth is a lush-kept river.
I want to write it a love poem.
To write it, I want to love a poem.
Knowing that too much of a good thing is a body’s menace.
I know a body is a good thing even if menace
Bogs it down sweet-slow as thick honey.
Thick, it bogs down as honey sweet and slow.
My body is the Niger Delta's sinuous neck.
The way things latch on.
Things latch on
To my history brief as day’s kept promise.
Briefly, my history is a day’s promise
Kept by the lush mouth of a river.
My mouth is a lush-kept river.
I want to write it a love poem.
To write it, I want to love a poem.
Knowing that too much of a good thing is a body’s menace.
I know a body is a good thing even if menace
Bogs it down sweet-slow as thick honey.
Thick, it bogs down as honey sweet and slow.
My body is the Niger Delta's sinuous neck.
Jakky Bankong-Obi writes from Abuja, Nigeria. Bankong-Obi is Co-Editor at Ice Floe Press, and her work is forthcoming/in London Grip, The Kalahari Review, Patchwork LitMag, Gutter Magazine, Hobart Pulp, Pidgeonholes and Memento: An Anthology of Contemporary Nigerian Poetry, etc. Bankong-Obi enjoys long walks, yoga and dabbles in Nature Photography. She is on twitter as @jakkybeefive.
Art: Molly Dunham