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<pre class="wp-block-verse">It was the distance between skin &; bone; big, this 
country their tears covered. There was rainfall on 

his tongue &; trees quivered in the storm of his silence. 
He wandered every graveyard of her dreams, haunted 

by each hour striking. The striking of a match stirred 
the darkness &; their shadows wavered in the mirage 

of life, touching &; parting like running paint, like oil 
&; water. He wanted to see her face, to know her again. 

Her eyes drank the journey between them as thirsty as 
a drunk during Lent. He knew he trekked the thistles 

&; thorns between them but the bulwark of her arms 
was before him, rifling through his confidence, 

pilfering his guts like air on the bosom of a tree in 
harmattan. It was the asphalt between start &; finish, 

where love hovered like the Holy Ghost, where he was 
&; she was but together was not. It was walking away 

from promises shattered on the floor of their many wars. 
It was the silence of the anguish, stifled at birth, stifled 

at death. It was the decay of hate, the solidifying of 
nonchalance, the withdrawal of knives from flesh, 

the sheathing of wounds in the gloves of goodbye. It was 
dealing with alone, with after, with forgetting. Yet above, 

among the trees, sparrows made promises to others.</pre>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="block-042e9e12-00a8-42d8-a247-999f501a2981"><strong>CALL ME HOLY</strong></h2>



<pre class="wp-block-verse has-text-align-left">Call me miracle. I cough blood into the fist of wind 
&; it is rain. Yes, call me saint; I have arrived before 
purgatory time &; time again &; its doorknob has 

flaked off like rust. Just yesterday, I was crushed on 
the asphalt of desire, my hands quivering in the death 
throes of acquiescence. Call me hellfire—three 

airplanes spitting missiles into hamlets filled with 
roasting corn &; laughter of babies still chewing teeth. 
Call me god, any god, any worshippable thing. I have 

been moulded, a beautiful temple, fed with flowers, 
fire &; blood. Yesterday, I spat between her thighs—
ablution—&; undressed the crown of her thorns. Call 

me lover &; I am her beggar too, on my knees, my lips 
a bowl of need. Yes, call me a flower blooming in the 
drunken whistle of harmattan. I fear no element except 

gold, killer of little ones. Call me priest raising the incense 
of my voice into the deepest pit of any wall’s shadow. I 
piss on the many graves of men without wings. Call me 

a miracle, I concur. I will turn water into wine, smoke 
into fire, paper into tree. Call me something holy, some-
thing that this white God will love &; be gracious upon. </pre>



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IN THE WINGS OF SPARROWS, A NEST FALLS & CALL ME HOLY (two poems by Osahon Oka)
