Epitaph

By Adesiyan Oluwapelumi

​At the procession, I sang the funeral march
and named everything bereft of sound. The clocks
had chimed out of breath. The bones, stowed away
in wooden overcoat, had mastered the stonecraft.
The shovel clinked against earth, as though pebble
cast into quiet lake. Barren, the earth sought to repossess
her dew. The clouds poured as libation. By the graveside,
I met two ghosts sitting on a log. They smoked and sang
an old hymn, about a wild place where marigolds sprout
from corpses. Their mouths tipsy with wistfulness. And I
wondered, Lord, how beautiful it must be, to be awaken
by the violence of saving light.

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Prophecy

By Adesiyan Oluwapelumi

​In the woodrot, there was honey.
A reed of lilies and plum blossoms
burst from rotting pinewood. Lord,
I, too, offered my mouth as garden,
as rainwater seeped through crust
and light permeated through tree bark
as though onion layered. Take, drink:
He said, doesn’t this taste like a promise?
Pollinating bees pluck from our veins.

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Allegory

By Adesiyan Oluwapelumi

Neither shrub nor grass.
Barely moist loam. Neither
worms nor cotton stainers.
Neither algae bloom nor
water hyacinths. Barely
anything primal. Neither
empty hands capable
of holding thirst. Beloved,
all we had was a wing-petaled
desire, metastasized as tongue,
amorphous as salt. Hunger
clotted within your vessel.
An apple sprout from throat
as germ seed. The mouth
bright as a puddle as God
began to speak— Nira; meaning
water in Sanskrit. You, clay-mold
god cast in impermeable container.
O how the ivy slithered through you
hollow as reed and long as serpent.

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​Adesiyan Oluwapelumi, TPC XI, is a medical student, poet, essayist & Poetry Editor of Fiery Scribe Review from Nigeria. An Unserious Collective, Adroit Journal Summer Program, HUES Foundation & SprinNG Writers' Fellow, his works are featured in The Republic, Electric Literature, 20.35 Africa, Poet Lore & elsewhere. His chapbook Mouthful with Cinders was selected by Chris Abani and Kwame Dawes for the APBF New-Generation African Poets Chapbook Box-set Series (Akashic Books, forthcoming 2025).