Relics of ruin

Abdulkareem Abdulkareem

My nation gathers relics of ruin,
of houses
garlanded by explosives on the pages
of the newspaper —
of people morphed into bodies,
of placards painted
with the blood of their holders.
Borno became
a citation example in a Civic class,
on the topic enmeshing the student’s brain
on the effects of bombs.

I know a woman whose face whittles with
tears birthed back to life, from each glance
on the debris folded to the tip of her wrapper,

& a man who strolls through our street at night
with half of his existence burnt, whose family
was shattered by shrapnels,

& a little boy whose parents
subdued to the euphony of the fire’s melody.

a girl wants to plant a rose by the tomb
of her mother, but how would she when
bodies were bundled in a single pit?