The clouds move quietly like monks,
& a lance of light pierces through them
like stick through suya. Everything is cold
even the insides of my mouth. I
celebrate the moss & mosquitoes,
each with a separate duty. The rain
has softened my heart in its basin.
Ambushed by awe in this little town,
the music of thanksgiving has overtaken
my ears. Instead of waiting for a miracle
that will never come, I’ll magnify
the ordinary: dragonflies, lizards, pigeons.
Look at them decree a thing
I am unable to pronounce.
Pamilerin Jacob is a Nigerian poet & editor whose poems have appeared in Barren Magazine, Agbowó, Poetry Potion, Ghost City Press, Feed Lit Mag, Neologism, IceFloe Press & elsewhere. He was the second runner-up for Sevhage Poetry Prize 2019, co-winner PIN Food Poetry Contest 2018. A Best of the Net nominee, his poems also appear in Memento: An Anthology of Contemporary Nigerian Poets, 2020. He was a mentor in the SprinNG Fellowship 2018, 2019, & 2020. Author of the chapbook, Gospels of Depression, & Curator of PoetryColumn-NND, a poetry column in Nigerian NewsDirect, a national newspaper; reach him on Twitter @pamilerinjacob.
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