Garçon de Cuisine & Manicured Lawns
By Tobe Otuogbodor
Garçon de Cuisine
Do you know what it is like at
the kitchen door?
Side by side with the poultry,
trying to figure out a baptism name.
Maybe I’ll go with “Hey”
so I won’t be so easy to ignore.
Do you know what it is like
to wet the bed while sleeping on
the floor? There’s a sign that says
“slippery” so now there’s
zero-chance you’ll ever fall
for me.
Is it easy to be you when you
pick out a mango from the
basket and bite into it
without ever tasting the hands
that plucked it for you?
Sometimes, I say a prayer
for you when I am already
kneeling down in the garden
because it must be miserable
when someone else hits next
on the iPod connected to the speaker
in the middle of a song
Manicured Lawns
Wait under the plastic tree till its leaves bomb the garden.
At least the grass is real
but how about your sneakers?
Don’t worry nobody cares
even when they notice
while looking down on you.
Wait by the gap between her lips ready to be wet again.
There’s a forked tongue and
you have to decide amongst
yourselves who gets what.
She doesn’t have all day,
only the night really,
or a dark room or a cinema,
or anyplace people cannot see.
Wait till your nails grow long enough to fasten you to the cross.
So when they hoist you up
they can say its suicide
and your friends can touch
their glasses together at the bar
in place of their lips, maybe
but mostly in place of their words.
Everybody knows there are things
a Nigerian can never say.
Wait for the paint to dry on the house with the kettle boiling in it.
Take your tea in your arms
be careful not to burn your lips
while you clean the mud off
your clothes to make room for
how dirty you’re going to get tomorrow.
Tobe Otuogbodor is a 24-year-old Nigerian. He has been interested in poetry for as long as he can remember and started writing when he was 11 years old. He decided to seek publication when he realised that being handsome would only get you so far in life.