TAOFEEK AYEYEMI

Everything is happening at once

i. Our meals make their ways into the elders' bellies,

but our rings could not fit their fingers.

ii. Àròjinlè is tutoring Grok the differences

between green anaconda & reticulated python.

iii. A man tries to grab a boy from the Mokwa flood

but his grip could only arrest a splash;

iv. sisters slip off their brothers' hands like water

spat on hot steel.

v. We mind our steps on the street, and our

tyres on highways.

vi. The commander-in-chief of armed forces is shaking

hands abroad while the throats of 200+ citizens'

are being sliced in Benue.

vii. A celebrity's cross-continental wedding trends for weeks.

viii. We mind our fingers on the cyberspace.

ix. A muezzin's voice fades into a kaboom.

x. The children's hands stretches but could not reach the ceiling;

and the elders' hands could not enter the guord.

xi. Everything is happening at once, and the dead

are getting more flowers than the living.

Taofeek Ayeyemi "Aswagaawy" is a Nigerian lawyer and author of "Tongueless Secrets" and "Dust & Rust". A BotN and Pushcart Prize Nominee, his works have appeared in Lucent Dreaming, Up-the-Staircase Quarterly, FERAL, Akitsu Quarterly, Banyan Review. He won the 2021 Loft Books Flash Fiction Competition. He is @Aswagaawy on X.