The Tinderbox
- The Tinderbox
We were a conflagration askingto be incarnated into the world.Mother, superstitious, kept usapart, two stones of the sameigneous anger.
Everyone saucered tearslike firetrucks before planes crash as ifpreparing, should we combust.Mother had once hiddenall the nooses, knockingall hanging hooks from our ceiling,so they hid the tinder and wood,and cried flame-retardantfor the walls.
Your palm prints have returnedas shingles around my left eye.There’s extinguishing foam on the runway.We meet again in our prefabricated peace.Don’t aim the will at meif you will not shoot. [End Page 120]
Tolu Oloruntoba
Tolu Oloruntoba, a Nigerian poet and physician, has published work in The Reverie Journal, The Kalahari Review, and in translation in the Danish PEN Magazine.
