after Omah Lay
Godspeed, relative
to the thighs I wind
my chaos against—
Cyclones of hours
& desires, the sonic
griefs buzzing aloud,
screaming safety, & I,
there inside a bulb.
Fast flashes of light
dyes the chaos purple,
hammers me a song
& a somatic stimulus.
The tango of earth’s
axis is made vivid
in my head, this head-
-set, this bottleneck,
this weird sorrow
centrifuging a boy.
“Safe Haven” is written after Nigerian musician Omah Lay’s song of the same name.
Olumide Manuel, NGP IX, is a writer, a biology teacher and an environmentalist. He is a nominee of Pushcart Prize, and the winner of Aké Climate Change Poetry Prize 2022. His works have been published on Magma Poetry, Trampset, Uncanny Magazine, Agbowó Magazine, Up The Staircase Quarterly, Frontier Poetry, and elsewhere.