God's Easiest Wrath is Absence 

By Adedayo Agarau

I know this because I live in a body that is drowning

I spend eternity learning where birds sleep, sky or

nests, the road to peace is where a bullet splits open

the cerebellum of my friend, my mother throws herself

at the train, they say it is madness, I say it is knowing

when to jump into a fire, and when to jump out

a cigarette burns out and the flames go home

a man sings to his children, I imagine my father

distant like cities buried inside a throat

we still will be drowning if the earth is turned upside down

I take the first pill today, the doctor says my dreams

will come like a stranger, I scream out of a dream again,

my body a bead of sweat, my body a bead of sweat

in the last poem I wrote, I killed a bird, in this one,

an owl tells me my name, says the street where I grew

a bean, my first crush turned a coin into a cowry

I breathe into this room, my bed warm enough to bless an egg

I dream of my mother throwing herself at a train, her head

a blend of chronic depression, my overwhelmed sister shouts, oh my God,

oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God

                                                again, a drunk father didn’t make it home early

Adedayo Agarau is an editor, poet, and the author of The Arrival of Rain. His Chapbook, The Origin of Names selected by Chris Abani and Kwame Dawes for the New Generation African Poet, is forthcoming in July. He is the Assistant Editor at Animal Heart Press, Contributing Editor at Barren Magazine, and a poetry reader at Feral Press.