Mimesis


upon a saint’s grave lies a litany of prayer

dissolving into a pound of soil. what scrapes 

from a faithful pilgrim with white bird in his 

 

chest & white beards on his jaws than juicy 

flesh, to show him dead? i’ve walked into 

 

dreams to understand what desertion means: 

perhaps, is it the frozen lake a wild hog melts 

into like a piece of his culture he carries on his 

 

nose? who says we don’t admire God, we do? 

Or perhaps, we admire the flower that breathes 

 

behind His throne, too. you see? Even the angels 

have a garden of light they pluck breath from, 

like snowballs, as snow men. what silences a 

 

graveyard isn’t the presence of dead bodies but 

the absence of humans’ scent. i wonder if tearing 

 

a spiderweb means ruining his home and casting 

its bangles out into the cold, like a refugee, like 

how my mother sheds off the skin of her local 

 

color & nail a husk that reeks of modernism on

her ears. do these children know that local drums

 

have the voices they weave into our ears? & do re 

mi aren’t just notes but a series of hushed voices 

waiting to be touched by hands cold and frozen 

 

interpretation. i don’t remember if my lineage pane-

gyrics starts with my father’s name or his father’s, 

 

or his father’s father yet i do know, this language is 

nested into the water that drizzles beneath my legs. 

iyawo n lota (the bridesmaid is grinding pepper)

 

ileke n saso (the beads on her waist her grumbling)

ileke ma saso mo (beads, grumble no more)

 

je ki iyawo lota (let the bride grind pepper.)

i wonder if this song ever fall from mother’s tongue 

like mockingbirds fall into the palm of their deaths.

Sunday T. Saheed, the author of Rewrite the Stars, is a 17-year-old Nigerian writer, and a Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation member. He was the 1st runner-up for the Nigerian Prize for Teen Authors, 2021. His works have appeared or are forthcoming on Rough Cut Press, Brittle Paper, The Comstock Review, Salamander Ink, Aster Lit, The Lumiere Review, Poemify, Afrocritik, My Woven Poetry, Arts Lounge, SprinNG, Rigorous mag, Kissing Dynamite, Beatnik Cowboy, Trouvaille Review, Augment Review, Spirited Muse Press, Gyroscope, Giallo Lit, Open Skies Quarterly, Kalahari, Cajun Mutt, Open Leaf Press Review, Re Side, de Curated and others. He is also an asst. editor for The Nigeria Review (TNR). He was shortlisted for the Wole Soyinka International Cultural Exchange, 2018, The New Man Gospel Poetry Contest and BKPW Poetry Contest, 2022. He can be read on linkfly.to/sundaysaheed or reached on Instagram @poetsundaysaheed