Inferno by Keren-happuch Garba (17, Nigeria)

Mother always picked the seeds left behind
After The threshing to cook dinner.
It was when the flail had snapped the grains 
Off the necks of sun-fried wheat 
That the cold cauldron was warmed.

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It is at that moment, 
Two seconds after your mind forgets to think
The thoughts of "things never getting better" will chime.
When the rhythm fails to succumb to words
You'll let them down in abstraction–
Eyes blinking three times faster
The folding of hands and pacing up and down 
As a punctured balloon 
Frail hands going up to shield the brittle skull
From sounds of blasted silence thrown by gunshots.
It's life, you say,
There's imbalance in the way 
Life dies in death and vice versa
Dusk cools the earth for ghosts to awaken
Then dawn tells the stories of those lost on news headlines.
Everything is pure-mixture
A little distilled, two fractions of unweighted good and bad
Like hands, 
We don't get to choose what turns left or twists right.

I know Mother loves to cook.
But not by the damned wet corner 
With soaked firewood and a gathering of white smoke.
We fight cold wars with matchsticks
Those flames, a snippet, a kindle to our desires 
Are wasted on eternal nights that forget to wash away.

On good nights, 
Seal your lips with stitches of silence
Let the mouth turn sour and the teeth stay shut
Sit in the zephyr blowing 
Behind the shadow of the moon 
Strike a match and burn the chaff in a great blaze.