Tuesday Poem by Roland Nduka Akpe

Words hid in a corner
dark with remembrance.

Words dumb from scarred silence
from long neglect
ask me to speak – tongueless.

Beautiful things sit beautifully
in a bar called Bravado,
full of insecure blandness.

She sits cross-legged on a barstool,
feet several inches of special –
off the floor.

Floors are resigned expressions.
We all fall in them screaming,

silent.

How quiet will you be
when the dark nipple of oxygen
with areola of breath is withdrawn?

I am silent like a hungry baby
tucked alive in fist of brown earth:

Is a muffled shriek
a coo?