POETRY: Àsàbí's Psalm and Expurgation By: Fareedah Abdulkarim

I can't take your pain away

Àdùbí, the courageous son of Ábìjà; whose spear never goes down without plunging into the breast of tigers. 

Àdùbí, the son of Àbèké,

The lady whose seductive hips sway to compass places,

Whose hips commands the worship of all men,

Àdùbí, the warrior whose smile is mistaken for truce,

Who all maiden dress to seduce

into their steaming temple,

  Àdùbí, whom I have bought with my tender breast,

Whom I have provoked with my supple hips,

Àdùbí, who had swore to die between my thighs a thousand times,

I have come to your grave for purgation.

I tortured your manhood when it was a rock

and I took your affection for granted,

I encroached your ego and tugged your love in the muds of Yéósà.

I fiddled your heart like the tresses of my hair

and made your wine bitter on some nights.

You gulped your last airs with a bitter eyes and a heart full of sores; unrequited love. 

You died a betrayed lover,

A soldier, a sentinel, who wasn't guarded —

The delicate shell of an egg.

I have come to pay you the respect you deserve,

I have come for purgation.

I have come to live with your departure,

An ocean missing in this disconsolate maps of my body.

I have come to live as an unmarried widow,

As the heartless bitch!

Open the windows of heaven

and swear that my tears poured at your feet

melts your heart. Swear that in another life,

You'll touch me again, like a man touches a woman.

Oluwashikemi✍

Edited by Ernest