'Sundown in Port Harcourt' by Okafor Kingsley Chisom

Her customer's gaze lingers

longingly at first, on her

the way a hawk

does scavenging chicks

now, she names her new price

before he steps

hard on the throttle

and zooms away

leaving a trail of curses

in his wake

'sagging breasts', 'cheerful giver', 'central bank'

she does not mishear

she adjusts her skirt,

pulls it further upwards

and waits for a new client

her defiance waxes

elsewhere it's night-time

another man spits out in disgust

and rains abuses on tonight's skies

he calls the moon-lit night

an insensitive brute

and the moon, a traitor

who steals the darkness

from every street corner,

why is tonight not

made of impregnable black?

why is it clothed only

in moon light?

no cheap sex in the shadows

nor peaceful street-corner sleep

he storms off to the brothel,

defiant,

he is homeless

shortly, a crowd will collect -

a gathering mob

(from far-away places)

that will grow slowly

like yam seedlings, sprouting

beneath the earth

into brown yam tubers

they'll emerge like

fabled masquerades

from houses like anthills

drunk with violence

sparked by virulent words

dug from back pages

of local newspapers

and from speakers of radio sets,

words flowing in defiance

like a rushing spring

over many rocks

running and screaming,

'give us Biafra'.

Okafor Kingsley Chisom is a 400l student of the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

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