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FLOODWATER | Poem By Al Ameen Muhammad

FLOODWATER | Poem By Al Ameen Muhammad

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,

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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

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