I started out a promise, I knew what path I could walk, what rest I should
have, whom to kiss & whom to tease; then life, with its metaphors, happened:
—Nome Patrick Emeka

Mnemonic skills test positive: inaccurately positive.
The past years are wads of silk stretched in lengths
At my frontal lobe. The holograph of life flashed
Itself through the marketplace; a falsetto, tugging at
The chattering of the square where I became.
Camera shutters. These feet, tender at first, gave
little kicks at the belly that houses him. A baby
Is only a baby when its presence is recognized.
When the mother cups her round stomach into
A prayer between gritted teeth. When the bulge
In her linens becomes a little heavier than her
Cramps. She parts her laps and screams the little
Thing to the world. Camera shutters. The little
Thing has a name that doesn’t run around with
Him. He throws himself to the wind, and there
Is always an arm right there waiting for him to
Drop. Camera shutters. The boy is a little bit
Over ten; no more wind games. No more dust
Racing. The crow that caws at the core of
the sea didn’t migrate with him. Lafenwa was
not home until it happened to him. Until
The boy realized that home is wherever you
Are a fluorescent light, undisplaced. Camera
shutters. Transitions. Old clothes, ripped off
by this bulging chest. Clear jaw, riddled by a
Field of hair. Mnemonic skills test positive:
inaccurately positive. But the boy is a man now.