On a certain day
When the pitiless sun
Was at her malevolent best
On a certain busy street
souls swamp like bees
On a nectar
Making for their daily bread
tired traders licked the sweats
From thier tired pours
At a certain broken boulevard
Made from broken blocks
Stood a certain man
Clad in tattered rag of wretchedness
Weary! Worried and waned
Up down ! Up down! he traversed
Kneeling,praying and begging
With his bowl outstretched
The first hand gibberished into a tattered note
And like a stagnant water gifted an outlet
he dropped and hurriedly moved
The second a woman
heavy from foetal protrusion
Perhaps hoping for a save return
Robbed her belly with a wade of salt
And like a devotee, beheld him penitently
Dropped it and rolled off
Then came a man inside a tainted monster
Who beaconed as he stretched out some clean notes
But as this certain man made to cross
Alas! a mechanical horse knocked and rolled over him
The aqueducts flowed of blood the current of Zambezi
He did not struggle to wade off the silent rider
Perhaps he had wanted and waited
No siren wailed!
No sudden silence of horror
Only intermittent words of pity
No soul worried to prepare him a home
No one asked to name him
No last rite of passage to the other side
Perhaps all along he was homeless.
~Akeredolu Tope
Ikare Akoko, Nigeria