The First Circle by Kofi Awoonor

Also Read

 

1

the flat end of sorrow here

two crows fighting over New Year’s Party

leftovers. From my cell, I see a cold

hard world.

2

So this is the abscess that

hurts the nation –

jails, torture, blood

and hunger.

One day it will burst;

it must burst.

3

When I heard you were taken

we speculated, those of us at large

where you would be

in what nightmare will you star?

That night I heard the moans

wondering whose child could now

be lost in the cellars of oppression.

Then you emerged, tall, and bloody-eyed.

It was the first time

I wept.

4

The long nights I dread most

the voices from behind the bars

the early glow of dawn before

the guard’s steps wake me up,

the desire to leap and stretch

and yawn in anticipation

of another dark home-coming day

only to find that

I cannot.

riding the car into town

hemmed in between them

their guns poking me in the ribs,

I never had known that my people

wore such sad faces, so sad

they were on New Year’s Eve,

so very sad.