Dear future other,
do come sooner,
for this wait gets my heart weary and yonder.
With every 24 long hours, I slip more under,
and my circle of friends grows faintly asunder
—sèbí ogún omodé ò kúkú le seré f’ógún odún. ∆
In these twenty years I’ve lived,
and through the many pages of Eve I’ve leafed,
if my tomorrows were a given—just if,
I wouldn’t want her bearing tests like Eve.
I will be just enough of that—living proof
and she’d be free to pick from my garden of ‘ifs’.
Beyond parturiency and its swollen feet,
I want a girl first, for many reasons beyond her:
her name is warped in my head—in salient bits;
she’d also carry Olárìnóyè in the snow of her teeth. ¶
Since it’d be hard keeping up with Ma’s hegemonic knits,
a bigger vote goes to this to-be rival who’s much fit.
Farewell too, dear bachelor friends,
if I do get a boy first, it’d all still end:
I’d lose the entanglements at night-outs
—it’s closure to guy-times and thirst for skirts.
I’d give knowing looks at his young lost bets,
there in the comfort of my cushion, no ‘ifs’ or buts.
This could be our love story, and my tale,
a certainty to my missing bell
—even if my coach doesn’t yet play ball.
Ref:
∆ — Yoruba adage: “Twenty children cannot play for twenty years.” —Time is as fleeting as our company is inconsistent.
¶ — Writer’s last name: wealth walketh alongside a chieftain.