There is a woman —her voice dragged across the wet belly of Mokwa —
mourning seven children gulped by the throat of rain.
Not everybody returned. Some vanished into the mouth of water
like secrets too heavy for air. Forgive me: these are the exact words
that floated from a man’s mouth before he sank — lips kissing the earth
as if it were a lover and he, a boy
with moonlight stitched into his confession.
We begged water to forget our names.
We hoped it wouldn’t cradle us back into the silk weight
of its gravity. We watched it kneel on rooftops. Bend steel
into the language of surrender. Whole houses folded into themselves
like prayer mats at dusk. Before the flood podium rose,
before vessels drowned in bedrooms, we were already running —
barefoot on sand, choking on wrath, watching a dead house nest
in the throat of a man who had only ever wanted peace. I tried to write a poem.
Asked the sky not to crow our faces in grief.
God — I am here with small eyes trying to swallow
an entire city into light. Trying to make brightness
wear the broken shape of darkness.
Trying to remember a time love and ruin did not hold hands
at the mouth of water. A woman’s body, miscalculated — the water forgot her weight,
could not solve her fairness. My brothers broke into city-shaped silences,
gathering where only God lives and does not sleep.
We tied our tongues to the tides,watched houses
float like broken promises. All we owned — unbuttoned
by the heavy hands of rain. I still wish the water
could spit back our dead like hopeful aquatics. I still want to taste
the yesterday of a city that dreamed itself whole. Here —I find you again,
floodwater. Stolen names. Broken cups that once
held our mornings.
Al Ameen Muhammad is a young Nigerian poet and spoken word artist from Minna, the capital of Niger state. His poetry collection, Sand Album, won the 2025 Nigerian Prize for Teen Authors. His work has been published on Maar Review. He is currently schooling at Fr. O’Connell Science College. Facebook:Al Ameen Muhammad, Instagram: Ameenmuhammad