Abdulkareem Abdulkareem

Every Song Falls from Our Mouths like Glass

There is a far cry in the tunnel of dreams,
             & sage lips quiver at the beckoning of songs. 

Hold dirges by your tongues for a shower of indigo,
              & raise songs from your mouth like a mother. 

Of weaver birds, of lips smoothen with camwood.
                There is a body of mournful songs in the beak 

of a nightingale & in our mouths wading through
              murky waters. A band of cherubs sings for the ones 

left behind. We clutch this song by our breath like
              a bayonet in the hand of a war soldier & we do not break. 

A garden of songs bloom in our throats where we harvest
              dirges at mourning, the happiness hymnal at hope terrains. 

The song is a neighbor to our lips, be it a dirge or an
          epithalamium—everything falls from our mouths like glass.

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Abdulkareem Abdulkareem, Frontier III, is a Nigerian writer. He won the University of Ilorin SU Writers
Competition (Poetry Category) 2022. In 2021, he was longlisted for the top entries of the Nigerian Students Poetry Prize (NSPP). He was also shortlisted for the PIN 10 Day Poetry Competition 2022. His works appear/forthcoming on POETRY, Asterlit, Poetry Column-NND, Brittle Paper, Rulerless Magazine, Ice Floe Press, Claw and Blossom, FERAL, Rigorous, Kissing Dynamite and elsewhere. He reads poetry for Agbowó Magazine.