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Poems

Things I Think I Know Of a Friend

By Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto From Issue No. 7

Five,

stop waiting for an opening,

there is no way to know him

than to walk into his skin

and become everything he has become.

i never have heard of people dying from door knocks.

Four,

he carries a pass-permit of

every sentences that has travelled

through his experiences. it’s a way he can only

make people see the little bird inside of him.

Three,

his mother has only one picture in her room,

and her nights are prayers plaited with halos; it’s how

she keeps record of people who poke her dreams.

Two,

his father does not like the portrait

of himself on the parlour wall; he leaves it there still

just for visitors who can’t pronounce his name.

One,

i shared a drink with him

and noticed a few things:

a: he looks up at the sky and falls asleep.

b: his pains are not compasses into an empty room.

c: there’re no fireflies trapped in a bottle under his bones.

About Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto More From Issue No. 7