MY WHOREDOM WITH THE FORBIDDEN
in my family, we are keepers of joy.
i was only a boy when i watched my grandfather paint the moon
sitting in a pool.
he would tell me to learn joy as a paper on easel
learns colours at the tip of a brush:
plain, rid of the worries of rot,
eager, full with hope of glory;
& stroke after stroke,
colour worships colour into glory, into beauty.
my mother, pounding pieces of yam into music in a mortar,
would tell me my body is an accordion,
that i should stretch every hurt into song,
that i should read grief in the symbols of melody,
that i home keys that are attuned to joy.
my father, a hunter before the forest ruined his foot,
limping in the manner of a retired dancer,
would tell me how the gazelle knocks the prairies
into singing at dawn as it dashes to drink from a creek.
but i am the forbidden fruit of our family tree,
because now that i'm grown,
i know my body & its whoredom with grief.
i know it enough to say,
"this is where it hurts."
Bio: Damilare Popoola is a medical doctor and writer from Nigeria.
He has keen interest in literature and its power to enlighten and transform the mind.
In his nascent writing career, he has had works published in Writers' Space Africa.
He tweets @paulomondml.
in my family, we are keepers of joy.
i was only a boy when i watched my grandfather paint the moon
sitting in a pool.
he would tell me to learn joy as a paper on easel
learns colours at the tip of a brush:
plain, rid of the worries of rot,
eager, full with hope of glory;
& stroke after stroke,
colour worships colour into glory, into beauty.
my mother, pounding pieces of yam into music in a mortar,
would tell me my body is an accordion,
that i should stretch every hurt into song,
that i should read grief in the symbols of melody,
that i home keys that are attuned to joy.
my father, a hunter before the forest ruined his foot,
limping in the manner of a retired dancer,
would tell me how the gazelle knocks the prairies
into singing at dawn as it dashes to drink from a creek.
but i am the forbidden fruit of our family tree,
because now that i'm grown,
i know my body & its whoredom with grief.
i know it enough to say,
"this is where it hurts."
Bio: Damilare Popoola is a medical doctor and writer from Nigeria.
He has keen interest in literature and its power to enlighten and transform the mind.
In his nascent writing career, he has had works published in Writers' Space Africa.
He tweets @paulomondml.
