The Ofi Press Magazine

Poems by Unoma Azuah (Nigeria/USA)

Published in The Ofi Press issue 36.

Bleeding on Blades

I lie in sterile light

On a bed of clouds

             where knives click in consent

             for an invasive performance

Like a tilted cup of tea

My blood spills across tables, white

             The tumors in my womb

are sliced

like

laces

       soft liver cut

       core kidney cut

           meat weighed on a butcher’s table

Agitated lumps secured a place

         for absent babies

the load of garden eggs

 water melons

Press

 down

on

me

But he sews me up like a tailor

The stitches are barbed wires

Filtering filth from flesh

But these are resident lumps and

Alien lumps

they scale the wires and sprout

again

and

again

and my womb

like a

sagging

bag

of water

melons

hangs

in

menopausal limbo.

Lye Set  

You

left

me

twisting

in

your

 flood

 light

like a moth in flames

You

 left

me

wriggling

in

your

palm

like a worm in a pool of salt

You

 left

 a

taste

of

 ice

on

my

tongue

like a leech in my blood

You

 left

me

a

broken

 jar

dripping,

dripping,

dripping

of

my

 last

drops

a

broken

 jar

caught between the angles

of a blunt broom and the hands of a porter

in flames

 in palms

 in salt

 in

tongue

a jar

broken

but in the hands of a porter.