ode to ma
Olaitan Humble
after Ernest Ogunyemi
iya ni wura
mama! you are a priceless platter crafted out of diamond / carrying belly-timber / prepared in the seventh heaven / by angels most revered / o mama! you are here / there / feeding mouthfuls of your illumination / to us / peace found a home as it settles on your wrapper / scaffolding the tips / with rich roses / & remnants of taaffeitte / lending their magnificence / to us—the seeds planted therein //
& mama is this platter
from which we take rich nutriments
which tingle our noses / which douse our hearts—
mama! your glow is like / the rising sun: pleasing & warm / so i fear not / ’cause i am the vast skies waiting / for lambency / & i will be a goldsmith / making your existence be as fruitful / & as good as gold / till the end of times //
sincerely!
Olaitan Humble is a writer, editor at The Lumiere Review and reader at Bandit Fiction who was shortlisted for the 2021 Loft Books Poetry Prize. A finalist for the 2020 NND Poetry Prize and a Pushcart Prize nominee, his work appears/is forthcoming in North Dakota Quarterly, Chiron Review, HOBART, Superstition Review, Rigorous Magazine, and Luna Luna Magazine, among others. He is currently an undergraduate at the University of Lagos. Instagram/Twitter: @olaitanhumble.
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