Silent Synopsis & Other Poems

Shitta Faruq Adémólá

A Cartographer of Water

(W)holiness is a pandemic. You wonder why your silence darkens over a platter

Of silver stones. Read a book in the library, and mark that particular synopsis

Where Jesus wept. In this turbulent sea, fear not, for in it, a Jesus does not sleep.

He speaks in a particular language to the storm, to be still, to be reminded

That a royal law exists. Once in a lifetime, dem be broom wey never break,

Because it does not w(al/or)k alone. There is a kind of sea my eyes see;

A captain making love to the wind, ejaculating laughter into the mouths of eggs.

You (t/r)ake a poem, and pour its remnants into the chest of this cartographer. 

I am a cartographer of water. I mould a map to appease the mermaids. We’re in a 

World where we do not imitate the fish. I recite a multitude of du’a, and incantations,

To please her soul. To remind her of (w)holiness in a splintered land,

In a city of ugliness. Fún wa ní ẹ̀mí ìṣọ̀kan. Bùn wá ní ọpọlọpọ agbára láti so ‘wọpọ.

Give us the audacity to be romantic like the bodies of fishes in the sea. 

There will be a whale, tender like flowers, purging love into bellies, into brokenness.

It’s one way of manifesting a knife and an orange – one kissing one, winding one; a plethora of bliss.

This is the body of poem my tongue ripples to taste –  of tenderness,

Of a wound getting potbellied by kisses, by a thousand miracles.

*The title is adapted from a line in Clifton Gachagua’s ‘Madman at Kilifi’

Portrait of Burning in a Place Made of Water

God, how do I make music out of this turbulence?
Somewhere, in a particular place, people fetch fire from the well – a well that was
Built to wash away sins. I forget things easily, my bad. The map is broken,
And I do not have access to sand to remould its brokenness.
They take fire after meals, cook iyán with fire, wash hands with fire,
Use fire to clean a baby that pooped on herself. What innocence? Playing with fire
Is writing a letter to death.
In this particular place, fire has become a cleansing. Muslims use fire for wudu,
The Christians pray into it for protection.
Even awọn tibi appease their gods by burning.
Burning has now turned into a ritual no water can heal.
In this place, boys go to school with marks of burning inscribed on their backs, 
afraid of entering into the next ritual
Of playing with fire.
Girls enter the market wearing a crown of fire on their forehead,
Even the market burns. Even the street burns. Even the river is an abode of burning.
God, how do I make this music? This is a place where the joy of a little boy
Is burnt from his country’s madness. Where a father loses hope of staying alive
Every day he walks down the street. A girl will always return home as ash,
Her family already burning at home.
See, each time I remember this place, I also turn into a phoenix, burn myself and ascend to heaven.
God, if you may please, show me how to make this music.