Flight
Hussain Ahmed
| poetry
the day an airplane crashed,
the air became heavy
with the aura of mouths
sore with grieving songs.
I was taught to plead with the fire in my broken tongue
as would an owl, tired of nocturne.
the confession room is a block away
from freedom park, where we go to celebrate everyone
that died in flight,
everyone who had a name
similar to ours.
I felt all our dead reincarnated in me today,
my body is now soundproof; I do not hear the songs that slip out of my mouth.
Hussain Ahmed is a Nigerian poet and environmentalist. His poems are featured or forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, POETRY, The Cincinnati Review, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. He is currently an MFA candidate in Poetry at the University of Mississippi.