after Abigail Mengesha; for casualties of the Nigeria-Biafra war

See how they hang a rifle around their necks. Clavicles flattened. Hands on the trigger. The entrance of a war is always smoother than the war itself. They must be oblivious. These boys, warm-blooded, dressing up to be killed. It came swinging, just like that, a war handed down now to be owned. I wonder if they could see the war for what it was— not this energy, these wide eyed chants, not even the brief madness of a military badge. Did they ever know? Air raids will come & so will bombs. Someone will kneel beside a lifeless friend & beg him to wake. Beg him to quiver even if for once. However, for now, let us pretend that martyrdom is only a synonym for strength. Let us pretend that this moment, photographed, will not hack them open like a cake. In far away Britain, prime minister Harold Wilson accuses Biafra of trying to garner sympathy by exploring (images of) the casualties of war — & I take more photos of blown out skulls. Of starving kids. Of imported guns. Of landmines & each British tank. I call their weapon by its white name. Deep in the bush, another boy is readying— makeshift soldier— armed only with a rosary his mother gave. Look at him. All of his childhood is already vanishing. In the past, “War” was only a kind of play— they did it around the house, water guns in hand, all of the children refusing to die. Now the real thing happens before his eyes. Blood & more blood where ordinary water would have been.

• The statement by Harold Wilson was obtained from There was a Country by Chinua Achebe.

        after Eric Yip

In Baraka there is no narrative, no voice over. The world is carved open down to its core, down to the skulls & to the room holding the skulls. In Ali's Wedding he wants to trace his own path. I am sitting in a warm room with my friend & I am telling her about the ache. How my heart keeps banging loud, each fine thread of muscle unravelling slow. I don't say angina. Don't say my breath stalls, & medicals suggest I may have cardiac arteries hardening to rock. In Takva: a Man's Fear of God the man is alone. Unlike me he prays long & believes in his own pristine light. After class, I brunch at an eatery with my friend. We buy soup & outside she makes a joke about how I kept licking & licking till the plate scrubbed clean. I don't say my ache widens. Don't say I'm trying to offer my body whatever it may never have. In Where Do We Go Now Lebanese women push back war. There's a scene where they drug the men with hashish & pastries, & then lift the weapons from around their necks. When they awake it is nothing short of a miracle. Isn't that what I too desire— sitting on this edge of the bed, counting nifedipine & atenolol. When the pills knock me out, I hope I'll awake with a heart steady enough it will be a miracle worth watching on screen.

A whole field of wild green grass
Thin blades shimmering in daylight.

We'd gather what was sufficient for
the goats. It felt like a sort of love–

our cutlass around a shrub, the chopping
sound. Once, the goat I liked most

labored to walk. I remember my
teenage palm, held apart, tapping it

to hurry home before the rain. Next  
day I awoke & the goat was gone.

It was sick with pox, my grandfather
said, hoping I'd understand how one

slain goat could save the rest. I saw
the ground in which he lowered it,

saw the knife that made it quick. This
must have been my first real grief.

How, before then, I thought that this
animal, grey & tender, would forever

bleat. I called it Horse. I was so silly
I once attempted to ride on it, & slipped.

Every evening, after grass feeding,
I would walk it home like we were

each other's kin. I don’t know which
is worse: misinterpreting a hint

from the dying or the fact it turned
out to be their last. But I was grateful

for whatever it had tried to say, that
day in the bush, the sky above us

a pocketful of rain. How hard it had
fought. As if it felt the door of its

soft animal body shutting & so it
did what any good friend would have

done: Force itself over & over to stay
with me even though it couldn’t.

As in the sound of rain returning.
       As in humming-
birds, their soft bird songs as they
      lodge a nest
between redwoods. As in nursery
      rhymes &
a child's wide eyes. As in prayers
      to no god
in particular, slow & heartfelt, like
      the Oh lord
preceding cum. As in cornfields &
      a horde of mice.
I do not want a life more remarkable
      than it is drab.
If ever in doubt, give me blue, give
       me the recklessness
of water spilled on a tile. How it is
      present &
at once gone. As in a feet slipping.
       As in the slipping,
the noun in motion, the body lifted,
      then slammed.
As in the 60s & the first moon man.
       As in newsfeeds
scrubbed clean of blood. As in each
      school kid
returning, not their school bags nor
      their shoes,
not the sorry, sorry, sorry. As in a
      body before
the tumor. As in the tumor, benign,
      melting  
back into the breasts tender soil. As in
       my father
without his rage. As in a childhood,
      soft & bloodless,
all my dead friends dug fresh from
       their tombs.
What if I'm fate's holy doe— made both
       for pasture
as well as for meat. What if all I ask
       for is to be
the hand around the tool, the one in control,
       loosening,
loosening, asking the animal to flee into
       where my blade cannot.

         My heart is fragile like the skin of a pear.
         A room on fire, every doorframe leaking ash.

Like a god, he made the door leak its own ash.
My father phones to ask when will you be back?

          When will you be back, he phones but never asks.
           I carry his love like a scar beneath my neck.

A scar, beneath my neck, how is that his love?
Once I thought Asclepius was the god of health.

          Then he built a heart & a god was made.
          Breathe, Doc says, what you have is angina.

When I phone my father, I don’t mention I have angina.
Even in my body, the wreckage begins in the chest.