In 2016, reports say 16,200 Nigerians died of drowning, representing 22% of drowning deaths across the African continent
—Anthony McKeever, 2021.
Ashore, the waves spit his name.
Briny air lingers in the folds of my weaving.
Children run along the beach, oblivious of the hanging sun.
Dreams, too, should not break—but aren’t they too brittle to remain in one piece?
Ekan believed in the language of the tides.
Father said the sea only wins for a day.
Gulls cry, circling above an empty canoe.
His body surfaced, bloated: silent, & still, silent, & still.
Imperilled fishermen say oil-stained waters kill the living.
Justice does not swim in poisoned rivers.
Knees bent in prayer, Mother weeps for a son lost.
Legends tell of fisherboys who never drown—
Mother calls them lies now.
Never again will he drag his nets ashore.
Oil leaks choke the rivers, stain the sand.
Politicians sip from their filled gourds, blind to the wreckage.
Quiet settles where boats once docked, where laughter once pitched a tent.
Remember, they say, but remembering is another kind of drowning. So, I want to forget.
Sea gods do not listen to grieving boys.
Time does not return the taken.
Under the full moon, I hear his voice—
Voice of the waves, calling, calling, calling.
Water does not weep, yet it swallows us whole.
Xeric winds sweep over the graveyard by the shore.
Yesterday, he was my brother.
Zero footprints left where he once stood.
Felix Eshiet won the 2025 Brigitte Poirson Literature Prize for Poetry. An Obsidian Foundation fellow, Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee, Felix is a Nigerian writer and Efik-Ibibio poet. His work has appeared in Chestnut Review, Only Poems, Madrid Review, Porter House Review, Tokyo Poetry Journal, 20.35 Africa, and elsewhere. He’s the Editor-in-Chief at Ekondo Review and a Poetry Editor at Bloodroot Poetry Journal. Connect with him: Facebook: Felix Eshiet, Instagram: felix_eshiet, X: gwriting_plug
Cover photo credit: Anatolii Hrytsenko