Abiku By Wole Soyinka

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Abiku

By

Wole Soyinka

In vain your bangles cast 

Charmed circles at my feet; 

I am Abiku, calling for the first 

And the repeated time.

Must I weep for goats and cowries 

For palm oil and the sprinkled ash? 

Yams do not sprout in amulets 

To earth Abiku's limbs.

So when the snail is burnt in his shell 

Whet the heated fragment, brand me 

Deeply on the breast. You must know him 

When Abiku calls again.

I am the squirrel teeth, cracked 

The riddle of the palm. Remember 

This, and dig me deeper still into 

The god's swollen foot.

Once and the repeated time, ageless 

Though I puke. And when you pour 

Libations, each finger points me near 

The way I came, where

The ground is wet with mourning 

White dew suckles flesh-birds 

Evening befriends the spider, trapping 

Flies in wind-froth;

Night, and Abiku sucks the oil 

From lamps. Mothers! I'll be the 

Suppliant snake coiled on the doorstep 

Yours the killing cry.

The ripest fruit was saddest;

Where I crept, the warmth was cloying. 

In the silence of webs, Abiku moans, shaping 

Mounds from the yolk.

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