A girl
walks towards
the light
and disappears
into a cypress—
do you see
how this is a metaphor
for the apocalypse?
I still highlight
the word grief
in every poem I read.
It is something I cannot unsee:
the colour of a body wrung of joy
like the blue black colouration
of a protein test.
Again, tonight
I search the sky
and name the bleakest
star after me.
It is what I do
to keep hope alive:
call myself a thing capable of light.
call myself a thing incapable of light.
Ibe Obasiota Maryhilda Ben is a Nigerian. She has won the Bloomsday Poetry Prize 2020 and The African Writers’ Trust Prize 2018. Her works have appeared on Brittle Paper, Kreative Diadem, Poetry Column and elsewhere. She writes from Calabar, Nigeria. Follow her on twitter @obasiotaibe.