IN LAGOS, BODIES SWITCH MUSIC IN A TANKER FIRE

and the cloud opens hurriedly for
a prophecy of smoke. It opens like daybreak
and it’s so funny how bodies collate fire easily.
Everyone carried race all over their bodies,
black. black. black.
No one remained the same
no one knew how explosion borrow bodies to make embers
no one knew how fire opens a body
layer by layer until DNA becomes an
identification messiah.
Imagine seeing a boy dying outside a car
where you’re locked inside
while fire approaches you with the anger of light,
imagine a man in a praying position
on the steering before metals pleats his faith.
Bodies switch music and dirge is a solo
that sings a boy into silence. Water is a tenor of things too weak
to stay in a body full of darkness. A motor’s wiper
mimes death, and its full light dies into seconds.
Noises drown this city of brown bodies.
do not call this road a mortuary
do not say this body doesn’t resemble your father,
do not seep this broken news into your veins
like the desperate tweaking of injections into a body
veined with deaths,
do not switch on the T.V
for they won’t still be sure
the death toll till the cloud closes like memories.

By Mesioye Johnson

Biography:

Mesioye Johnson is a bird of many colors who writes to heal his darkness and the world around his waist. His works are featured or forthcoming in African Writer, Eunoia review, Sub-Saharan magazine and somewhere else. He is @mesioyejohnson on Twitter