Ifeoluwa Oluwaniran
Ibadan, Oyo, Nigeria

THE DAY MY FATHER VISITS THE CITY

He was engulfed in the gushing flow of
cars, it was late and for a while he smiled
at every wonder he saw on the road.
He saw streetlights and called them
god-crickets. Road, dye. Cars, carrier tortoise.
Skyscrapers, Ostrich’s neck.
When we arrived, he immediately
took off his clothes, dressed as an Ifa priest
I’ve known him to be. He went outside,
wanting to present himself to the gods
that he arrived safely, this can only be done
when your shadow under the moon tilts
to the right. When he got outside,
the solar halogen stole away,
his darkness as he saw himself
on the eight poles of the earth.
Before dawn, the gods took him away.

Niharika Agrawal
California, USA

stand still

i am trying to be more still than a redwood tree so
that my blood does not dilute as i move from the
past past memories of atrocity are remembered by
me and the trees trees implanted in colonized land
with hard won freedom freedom to not be a
minority in a forest a forest razed for strip malls
trees whisper in forgotten tongues tongues ripped
out of skulls to destroy languages i barely speak
hindi my ancestors lived and died in मारवाड़ी मारवाड़ी
is foreign to me like willows to the redwood but my
uncles and aunties tell me to learn for my future
husband the presumption is stifling in the muggy
vrindavan air airy forests interrupt peace making
with culture is history a form of self erasure

Paul Hostovsky
Boston, USA

BRAILLE’S HANDS

I like the story because it’s true – Thomas Lux

When Braille died, braille
hadn’t caught on yet. The blind students
at L’Institut des Jeunes Aveugles in Paris
loved it, but the teachers and administrators,
most of whom were sighted,
didn’t. Because they couldn’t read it.
“Our blind charges will be taught embossed print,
not braille,” they said. Actually, they didn’t say that,
because braille wasn’t called braille back then.
It was called “Method for Writing Words, Music, and Plainsong
by Means of Dots.” At least that’s what Braille called it,
in French, after he’d perfected it. So maybe they said,
“Our blind charges will be taught embossed print,
not those pesky dots that Braille came up with.”
He was a student at the school. And later a teacher.
The dots were a kind of contraband
passed from hand to hand clandestinely
among the students. They didn’t start calling it braille
until long after his death, when the dots spread
like wildfire, to blind hands all over the world.
That’s when the bigwigs came down from Paris
to the village of Coupvray, where Braille was born,
and where he was buried. They wanted to disinter him,
transfer him up to Paris, re-bury him,
with honors reserved for the greatest French minds,
in Le Panthéon. But the village elders
would have none of it. Il reste ici! Back off, bigwigs!
Back and forth went the tug of war over Braille’s remains.
Finally, a compromise: His hands
would remain in the village of Coupvray,
because, after all, it’s the hands of the blind
that read braille. (Leave it to the French
to cut off the hands of Louis Braille!) The 27 bones
of his hands are buried in the village of Coupvray,
where blind people from all over the world make pilgrimages
to honor him to this day, while the rest of him
is buried in Le Panthéon up in Paris
sans hands.

Sylvie Leggatt
Brighton, UK

MARCH

You bought me flowers
Several weeks after you were arrested.
Orange and green, with huge, white lilies
That sat in the middle and didn’t open for weeks.
You said it was honourable, such proud-necked sufferance.
I took them all the way
To the hospital for my ultrasound,
Clutched in brown paper and beginning to wilt
Against me on the train.
Benign lump, they said, patting my leg,
And sent me on my way.

Jessica Peng
London, UK

AFTER SCHOOL

At three-fifteen, the shop assistants
eye the doors and grimace as waves
of local girls in dark green blazers
burst in like beads from a snapped necklace.
They head for Rimmel, those satin-finish
lipsticks, brow gel, sponge-tip concealer,
smudgy eye pencils, this mascara
doesn’t move, I swear, I cried to check.
Marc Jacobs Daisy wafts out from the aisles
until the tester’s empty; their hands are dry
from swatches but nobody buys a thing,
gorging themselves on dreams of glamour –
Cara’s eyebrows, Adwoa’s freckles –
they’ll never be this young again.

Elliot Smith
London, UK

STUMP

You were sapling-tall
when I took first steps
well west of here,

storey-high as my sons
stumbled up themselves
two roads over,

years of gathered light
circling a thumb
of heartwood.

Those patient rings
open to the sky now,
a honeyed wound.

OCTAGON