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<blockquote><p>Life is a crook and though</p>
<p>you pour him drinks and fill his bed</p>
<p>with feathers and whores.</p>
<p>It’s the uneven face of the sky</p>
<p>it’s cloudy in Pompei as</p>
<p>fog sneezes over the city;</p>
<p>she bleeds rain there.</p>
<p>But our crops thirst and the squirrel’s nails blunt</p>
<p>From digging holes yearlong</p>
<p>here the sky is so clear and blue</p>
<p>to provoke the earth to dusty rage.</p>
<p>Somewhere, a man visits the rain-lord</p>
<p>another loops his only buba to hang his neck</p>
<p>if only he knew the Morrow would mate flood</p>
<p>those seasons your barns swelled and yams</p>
<p>you baptized in red, swirling oil</p>
<p>now you grumble for the rains</p>
<p>have taken her wares to another market.</p>
<p>You’ve turned your womb to a slaughterhouse</p>
<p>of tiny men for the mothering hour hasn’t come</p>
<p>somewhere a couple eats cocoyam alone</p>
<p>without the murmur of kids.</p>
<p>Life is the sound of rain</p>
<p>beating on my zinc roof</p>
<p>The rhythm is taut and noisy</p>
<p>Like giants marching</p>
<p>In between, Calm peeps through</p>
<p>the torrent of noise so the honks of geese</p>
<p>and the flutter of sparrows, we hear again.<br>
Though he has gulped all your ale</p>
<p>he’s never too drunk to not walk in</p>
<p>straight, sane lines like a pious drunk</p>
<p>on his last trip to the monastery.</p></blockquote>
<p><figure id="attachment_20960" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-20960" style="width: 1210px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://poetry.wrr.ng/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/LIFE-IS-A-CROOK-by-Agbaakin-O.-Jeremiah.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-20960" src="http://poetry.wrr.ng/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/LIFE-IS-A-CROOK-by-Agbaakin-O.-Jeremiah.jpg" alt="LIFE IS A CROOK by Agbaakin O. Jeremiah" width="1210" height="700" loading="lazy"></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-20960" class="wp-caption-text">LIFE IS A CROOK by Agbaakin O. Jeremiah</figcaption></figure></p>
 
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 Oluwatoyosi Agbaakin </a>
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