i.

for Anny

i have walked past your absence –
40 miles across the moorlands.
i want you again, back into
my sombre body, swallowed
by protracted maladies –
of stained glasses & neon trees.
i am seated in the dark
of extinction, it’s hard
to light a candle now.

ii.

for Ashraqat

i have made the shahadah
my tongue’s best friend –
i am a wilted ixora, lamenting
in my modicum chamber
of regret & dying like
the sun at dusk. now you
are free. swift like the wind
& soft as shadow. i will
carve out your face from an urn,
& fill its hollow with flowers.

Ugwu Erochukwu Shedrach writes from the city of Enugu in Nigeria. A
soil scientist & a moral philosophy enthusiast.