Ayoola Goodyness Olanrewaju writes

surgeon of soles

that was how you woke
and said to the womb of morning
that you have seen your destiny...a surgeon of soles...

that you have changed the robe of slothfulness
for the gown we once sewed with your wasted years
the gown we incised with the teeth of termites
and soaked in the blood of ants...

we could not believe less
when you read us incantations
from the rosary of the sluggards and the ants...

before the moon could twinkle
and sew stars for the gully of nights on fragile clouds
you bought mother
a house -
a car and a rocking chair...

so we thought
it was the time for lifting your hands
into threads and magical awls...

you awed us into the eyes of your awls
and sewed us tales we could not vomit
you told us of how you mended the soles of kings
and made heels for queens in the holes of africa
and the queen of england...

we tied our songs to your cap
and drummed your wealth into the ears of poverty
we gave you our sons
and you promised us to polish them into suns...

not until now that we met your mother
minced into your steaming cauldron of evil
her head smashed into the oral of a mortal dressed in a thousand apparels
her tongue half eaten into a corner of a broken calabash...

we saw on your menu -
the names of our sons and their recipes of death
we saw our names too crossed into gory symbols
held within the fangs of a giant cobra...

who would have known?
your surgeon of soles is a slaughter of souls...

you have made no shoes
but soups for hot money...

who would have known?
your surgeon of soles is a slaughter of souls...