Tuesday Poem by Dami Ajayi

I imagined it differently:
toddler daughter pruning my facial garden,
notices a speck
& says, “Daddy see.”

But my progenies don’t breathe air;
they sit on shelves
& I wear
proudly the badge, “Author”.

My mother and her friends haven’t lost hope:
prayers & match-making,
winks & wishing but my dreams rest
on different pastures,
I forage for
a different kind of affection

& my body is becoming its own thing
on my watch, a beer gut morphs.
My hairy paunch becomes a shimmering thing
like my inner thigh.

If I was God,
I would do it differently.
Grant those who pray for beards, breasts and buttocks
their dream bodies.

But I am no God.
Just an aging man
and one strand of grey beard.