Poetry from Olatomiwa Aina

Our hands wriggle
in a crazed dance with fate
while our fathers' belly's past gluttony
hisses at misfortune's coming diarrhea.


At his table, they dined desperately,
–Jahanaam's horned King 
with spoons shorter
than lashes in the eyes of babies.


Whoring their rotting teeth
into shiny soft fruits
and leaving on our buds,
tastes, cringing and sour.


Under the billowing tree,
towering over their graves,
We'll question what sins
our heads have against God
to have subjected us 
to this cruelly father-made fate.


If only they could hear our whispering,
if only they could hear us pray.