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