Tuesday Poem by Olajide Salawu

HOTSPOT
I am meeting my lover for the first time.
And in the scene, her skin
is dark with kinky grasses growing on her head.
I ask her why she would leave her demon
back home and walk up to me in a strange
body and why her eyes are not patented
in their marionette colour.  The purple-pink
of her mouth has melted into a brown pond of grief
while the moon is somewhere at peace
above us.
I am meeting my lover for the first time but
I am remembering another girl
with corral teeth and feral eyes.
In the scene, she describes herself for me
adding flowers and our last emojis;
inside the planetary depth of her dimples,
I look like an archeologist
discovering his first fossil
through the violent breath of the wind.
I am meeting my lover for the first time.
Will you like to meet her too?
We are at Hotspot of the city
sitting at a table with echoes of Lana Del Rey
reaching us at a side and smoke of barbecue
burning the ozone layers of our love
as our faces reach an eclipse.