When the horrific accident happened,
the Clarion call of death was answered
by my beloved parents, my feathers;
by my legs, not my body. No!
not my soul; for, this Island became
a desert, watered everyday,
for another seed to sprout. yet, fruitless;
I am left with camouflages,
after the bloody accident.
 
Father used to say "God is always doing
good, and will continue to…",
Mom would only tell me fairytales;
Just as a duck would protect her chicks.
But, they couldn't bid goodbye
before they joggled to whirling wind,
when the horrific accident happened;
 
A hummingbird howled on my grandmas' roof.
Those old women have to become barren
like the mango tree people once assembled beneath.
I wonder if He's still always doing good.
 
A minute walk becomes a year race
in the wheelchair. Yet, I find my existence is a grace;
For, the sun that shimmers like a beacon,
the one that scorns; the moonless night,
the stars that shine in the grey sky;
a hope that I could see.
For the food that's like Okun river,
the one that's like freshwater, I could taste.
For the glimmering future –even,
with the crowd of darkness, currently–
I could dream.
My existence is a grace!
Your existence is a grace!
Our existence is a grace!.

when we were children,
there was a man we used to climb,
with a labyrinth of thoughts,
that we would touch the sky.
and, whenever we climb,
he would promise taking us
to another world—with birds,
with trees; a kind where
antelopes play a chase
game with bats. and another
day he would stand
near our room, singing the
alphabets of our names;
with smiles, with delight, & in
chorus, we would answer
and climb, again. a day, week
and a month passed, still
waiting  for the return of his
soft whispers, but he didn't
come, again. got tired and asked,
“where is the man we used
to climb?” and mother said,
“you have sent him to become
the moon; to the place where
only the feet of stars step. and,
i have seen in the notes written
in his radiant eyes, a numbered
tombstones of your dreams”.

​here, we build houses with decayed,
unburied bodies that forgot the other
new ways to breathe in the land
where flowers, too, are names given
to the family of bullets that haunt
the bodies that refuse to fall.
see, maybe, when the sun's
eyes become weary and darkness
wears the crown, a masked face
might ask if the graveyard
is full, so he would unearth those
that got their halves blessed to be
buried in a grave as a way to shelter
the remnants of his fallen body; an
escape from being wholly flooded
by the flooding water that holds
the melanin of blood. you see, here,
when children grow beards, they
metamorphose into night heroes,
visiting home after home, burying
the mouths of their brothers with
notes only to have the ballots
thumbed on their strange rooms.
today, let me tell you what to say
to the boy that always asks for the
remnants of rain, tell him here is a
land turned to a Kalahari—a new
desert formed by our unploughed
prayers and burning wishes. if you
like, snuff the monster out of your
mouth and tell him about the
remnants of the rain who could
only be seen when we grind the
satanic dots between what our
mouths utter. tell him it could only
wet our withered bodies when we
bury the things hovering the arena
in our craniums; things that are
synonymous to building sandhouses
together after the rain. such things
beyond things like he gave us poetry
when our eyes were searching for
rain, or he taught us how to pray
under the roofs where angels that
carry in their mouth hymns sung
from the heaven, stay. tell him you
mean such things beyond what our
hearts could feel. and the remnants
of the orphaned rain, is lying here
between our ribs, sieving the dust
trying to blur the eyes of this
night would born.

About the author: 
Salim Yakubu Akko is a Nigerian writer, poet and essayist from Gombe state. He has been published on Applied Worldwide, Brittle Paper, The Pine Cone Review, World Voices Magazine and elsewhere. He has been shortlisted for the 2021 Bill Ward Prize for Emerging Writers  Akko is a member of Gombe Jewel Writers Association, Creative Club Gombe state University and Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation.