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I SEE MYSELF IN YOU
By Juanita Cox Westmaas Saturday, 2 March 2013. I see myself in you. Torso. I want to let you run through bougainvillea And chirp to the song of crickets To climb the guava tree and curl your toes Into dusty red earth as soldier ants convoy past And butterflies dart in the heady humid air Of spectacular yellow Coctu, purple Hibiscus and cooking-pot stew But my stomach balks at the taste of mendacity And the disquieting dismemberment of you. Drained like my mother’s claypot I was dry of blood. Discovered in the River Thames As bobbing sodden tore Bereft of bearings or bushes, They called me Afro-Caribbean: I could have been. We share a limbo dance and more. They later thought seven half-candles and a sheet to the waves Tied me to the crude blue ilk of Adekoye Adeoye But it did not For he, the honourable Fola, was found drumming Rhapsodic reprieve from the twin tower eclipse Of shock and awe. My fate, Until they found me ten days later, Was a lonely grave by the south bank Of Tower Bridge and Globe Theatre. No mother of comfort to weep my departure, No heat reflected off cracked asphalt or Burnt amber roads to warm my watery tomb, No fresh sticky scent of squeezed ripe mango or The pound, pound, pound of fufu to Entice and guide me on my way. Not even two minutes of silence. What kind of Mami Wata was called upon by My guardians, murdering cohort of three, To spin me up and down Through sewage-ridden waves The colour of fireless coal In the deep deep sleep of night? How could She name me Ikpomwosa? What lies! What irony! Ogun I swear My spirit will haunt her. And you, Bawa Juju I watched your face. Trusting I drank of the cup and ate of the bread. With the curiosity of an innocent child peering into The narrow neck of a large earthenware pot I stared into the pit of your eyes without knowing Their dark hollow expanse would soon be pouring With the sweat of sawing exertion. I did not know My frothing, gulping scream would not echo. Could not echo. Could not even sound. Poisoned and paralyzed my terror Stood blank in the light of an impotent moon, The tongues that bubbled incantations And shadows that danced among the splashes of potent Ogogoro, scented oils, sea-shells and breathe-blown chalk dust, Corn, candlesticks and fleeing bright Bright powders. The baffled and inquisitive settled for Adam: And perhaps I am a beginning without end. My beckoning trunks of orange The slight codpiece of dignity Sewn with wool for what its worth It needles back without point from a bed Of shopping trolleys, urban waste and Garbage ridden-silt to a branch of my Trafficked existence in Hamburg. The riddled colon of plant extract, Toxic calabar bean and clay with Flecks of pure pure gold testify to My origins in Edo State. I was a small child, a boy of five, Maybe six years old. Some say you are Patrick Erhabor but How can anyone be sure? Bawa Juju you accused me of witchcraft, Fatal punishment for a word I did not even understand. I should feel pity for your worthless soul, Instead I rage. You stole from me. Forest elephant, pale-fronted Negro finch, Hyena, Bush baby, Yellow-Throated Cuckoo, cuckoo And red river hog drowned in your insatiable greed Or were they eaten by the fishermen who Did not care for my dreams of Eba and Egusi Soup Boiled yam and Ogbono, And my grandmother’s Oghwo Ovwri: For there is no smoked fish In the River Thames Only leaves of bitter tricks. But limbo is not forever. I am Ahigbe. I am Olokun. I, Bawa Juju, will find you.
Juanita Cox Westmaas is a London-based poet, writer and academic.
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