Read Time:1 Minute, 5 Second
(after CP Cavafy)
He completed the painting Wednesday at noon.
Now he admires it line by line. He’s drawn her
wearing an unzipped blue top,
no bra, shoeless, with a camel-coloured
shirt, unbuttoned, letting a peep
into her bulging chest and body.
The left side of her head is nearly covered
by her curls, her beautiful hair
(weaved in the style she lately prefers).
He’s managed to capture precisely the amorous mood
he fancied when he painted the lips,
when he drew the eyes…
That smile of hers, that cleavage
so prime to fulfil a new kind of sensual pleasure.
Ismail Bala is a poet and translator who writes in both English and Hausa. His work has been featured in renowned journals across the UK, USA, Canada, India, and South Africa, including Poetry Review, Ambit, New Coin, Ake Review, Lunaris, A Review of International English Literature, and Aura Literary Arts Review, among others. Born and raised in Kano, where he completed his university education, he pursued postgraduate studies at Oxford. Bala’s poetry has been translated into Latvian, Belarusian, Nepalese, Slovenian, and Polish. A Fellow of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, he is the author of Line of Sight (Praxis, 2020) and Ivory Night (KSR, 2024).
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