by D. M. Aderibigbe
Grandma extirpates the houses, earthworms
carve with greenish irritation in the bathroom,
With brooms and detergent powder,
Like flood flushes houses into unknown conundrums.
The floor screeches like a wounded dragon, grandma groans
like a pregnant woman, ascending on a mountain.
A couple of disturbing voices invite me to the bathroom.
Grandma sits motionless on the floor of the bathroom,
Like movie characters in a paused scene,
The brooms and the buckets, lay beside her on
The cement gloom. My vociferous terror pulled
solicitous crowd to our bathroom, like the El’classico in spain.
Grandma gradually recuperates in the hospital,
the nurse charges us with attempted murder, for
allowing an “Old Woman” to be young.
But grandma loves being young, working and walking
like the hands of a wall-clock.
She would never let anyone treat her like she
is.
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D.M. Aderibigbe is a 23-year old Nigerian. An undergraduate of History and Strategic Studies at the University of Lagos. His poetry and short fiction have been published or are forthcoming in 10 countries, in journals such as Wordriot, The Applicant, Red River Review, Ditch, Kritya, Thickjam, DoveTales, The New Black Magazine, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Torrid Literature, Rusty Nail, Vox Poetica, Pyrokinection, Jellyfish Whispers, Commonline, Rem Magazine and The Faircloth Review among others. He’s a die-hard Inter Milan fc fan. His poetry is greatly influenced by Poets such as Octavio Paz, Seamus Heaney, Kamau Brathwaite, J.P CLark, Ilya Kaminsky, Natasha Trethewey, Naomi Shihab Nye, Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, His Prose owes much to Toni Morrison, Nuruddin Farah, J.K Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, Helen Oyeyemi, ZZ Packer, Nick Hornby, and Helon Habila, and his plays would always be grateful to those of Wole Soyinka and Arthur Miller. His poems have also appeared in a couple of anthologies including the Kind-of-a-hurricane Press Christmas Anthology; Mistletoe Madness, edited by poets A.J Huffman and April Salzano. He has also seen 2 of his poems included in the 2012 Best of Anthology, Storm Cycle, and his pieces have also been named The Beachies Award’s Most Memorable pieces of 2012. He lives and schools in Lagos.
Art by Sheila Lanham
The Merida Review 