[the life of a man in a cycle of vanity]

a choir of grief sings your extra skins to pieces.
you pick up the pieces & give each a name;
please. me. god. fix. then you bring the pieces
together like puzzle & discover that they are a plea.
"god, please, fix me."
meanwhile, at twenty,
the panic of growing
older slapped differently
like ìjèbú garri in a dry mouth.
twenty, youthful & lustful,
god's left eye watching,
but twenty said, "life just began".
twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five learned
words like, "balls. libido. clubs. protection".
the panic of growing older beat differently
like little woye & yaremi's taffeta.
[bayo adebowale understands]
forty was confident & brutal,
wearing beards of
responsibilities.
god's hands
beckoning,
but forty said,
"there's
[enough] time".
sixty was a stripper.
sixty-five. seventy —
& now, if you saw god,
you'd rend his pants into
the pieces of your current age —
each piece to patch-up each year,
like inventing a millennial calendar.
you beg death to teach you how to live,
'cause you sold out the days of your youth
like movie tickets. but the earth is an ever-ready
glutton, patiently laying await in ambush.

Flourish Joshua is a Nigerian Poet, Essayist, Satirist & Editor. He is a Scholar of the Nairobian Writing Academy. His works has been published/forthcoming in East French Press, Praxis Magazine, Glass Poetry, Agbowó, among others. He is the Managing Editor at Naija Readers' Buffet and on the editorial board at Frontier Poetry Journal.