ghost city, black waters

the photo booth is also a town of memory the dead

& the not so dead their still voices lurking in monochrome

turquoise blue yellowish brown dreams while we sleep i

dream of a woman trapping my body a bottle my voice soared like an eagle

escaping a storm but the toad in my throat is big this morning

i wake into dusk my father’s brother leaves his slippers by the door & my

mother throws herself against the terrazzo there is a poignant truth in

heavy sighs i count twenty-three stars falling down my father’s mouth

& the wall holds the dead man tightly my father held together by the bond

of blood & water drops a tear my father cries my father

wipes my uncle with his handkerchief

Adedayo Agarau is a student and poet hoping to make the world a little better with his words and photography. He has works up at Barren Magazine, Geometry and 8poems. He is the author of For Boys Who Went. His manuscript "Asylum Chapel," is coming to light for publication and looking for a good home. Please connect with him on twitter @adedayoagarau and on Instagram @wallsofibadan, where he documents the beauty and pain of his Nigerian city home.