in memoriam ii
By Martins Deep
The night you died, Echo never stopped howling
poor dog, barking and barking
restless as your fingers over the pages
of a Bible you never read
until you started seeing ghosts, of friends
who died in the civil war, calling your name
after all your lost dreams. asking you, what’s the point?
you fight for life, and yet it betrays you
i stood outside, by your window,
sketching with an ember,
a faceless horseman giving you a hand from a body
marked with the many lovebites of a scalpel
it’s 8:45 p.m. i put on your radio, wear your unwashed clothes,
and sit beside your blind dog
to pretend it’s you. and only by scent
…and waiting for death
that never came for you under the orange tree.

Martins Deep (he/him) is an emerging African poet, artist/photographer, & and currently a student of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. His works deeply explores the African experience. He loves jazz, adores Amanda Cook, & fantasizes reincarnating as an owl. He tweets @martinsdeep1