Drought

It is so goddamn hot in our country that blooms —jacarandas, bougainvilleas, flamboyants— erupt in a shock of fuchsia from pipes laced with rust. Hokoyo! Step too close and your skin will crisp up like a chicken in hot Olivine. Everyone will see the fat sizzling from your innards. It is so hot that locusts drop in pools around your feet, their musical legs all melted. In our nation a waterfall is a cauldron of steaming falsehoods. S m o k e    t h u n d e r s … Maize simply withers in the miserly shade of thorns. Men quiver at cock’s crow and hang their cattle out to dry. Pumpkins turn to gourds. Midnight flushes out hunger. Ngozi dart in disregard across the oozing tar. Ach man, spare us your sermons concerning our weeknight brews: the problem we are facing now is the drunkard who drains his own water pot, leaving the mother of his children with one thing only: pure grit. Rhinos are shrinking Filthy crawfish bloat. Our grandmother is just seated as if death were a bus running late. We have now reached the stage where lackeys are openly trafficking dragon fruit, smuggling them through customs as if they were Marange diamonds. Meanwhile, at the small house, their scrawny young girlfriends are just hassling the houseboys. Our eyes run all through October, slash-and-burnt like rhizomes. We hear the drum’s skin crackling as it curls. We smell the coming rain. Archangel, your time draws near.