i saw a whorl of crows descending here & took these notes

— for s. kaduna

1. again i taste this war stuck to my tongue like a desert gourd

2. i traverse across scorch marks & disturbed clods

3. the beginning remains less vague than the end

4. i cup my palms to trap vestiges of the air's fading colour

5. every now & then a tiny rose would stir out of the rubble here

6. & suddenly i'm that little boy floating through the blooms 

   of a lucent meadow

7.  i'm trying to nurture the sun-splashed past like my breath

8. how do we breathe when living is a routine in ruins?

9. we cram into our shadows when dark clouds spread across 

   the sky like upturned fibrous roots

10.  the wind speaks from a folding sky

11.  & the walls take flight around a cumulus of wandering stars

12.  i'm trying not to love hate

13.  loving it brought us here in the first place

14.  every day leans into loss:

15.  terra firma riddled with smoking holes stitched with dust rites

16.  the rust of abandoned granges claw at our bellies

17.  more children succumb irreversibly to gravity

18.  i have a confession: hope encircles the days like a gilded ring

    on a crooked finger

19.  i melt all over again into the puddle of faces in a leaky

    makeshift shack