Tolu Ogunlesi

Ships

(for Baghdad, for Bayelsa)

 
There is smoke everywhere, 
staining the atlas in deeper hues

than the ink that marks place. 
 
Unseen hands daily leave bloodsmears 
across the face of the clock, 
like a painter’s gentle, yet relentless art. 
 
When that canvas is finished it will harbour

two ships; one sailing into port, loaded 
with the symptoms of our oilboom; 
 
the other sailing away, tipping over the edge 
of the earth, 
bearing broken flesh into an invisible dustbin. 

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 Tolu Ogunlesi