From Iyana-Ipaja to Ado-Ekiti
The bus stop at Iyana-Ipaja is an odor that breaks in
through the door to our nostrils.
The breath of exhaust pipes is a taste that wings
through the foliage of our mouths.
I get a ticket & a bus that looks interesting when it does not travel.
I slump onto a seat & a wind of delight quickens the desire for movement.
With a hunger for fresh scenery, I absorb the trees,
tiny branches of God planted in every corner.
We follow a road sided by a wildness of weeds
& potholes that shapeshift the idea of beauty.
The sun makes a river escape the cave of our bodies.
The driver makes love to the accelerator
& his speed is a rising gale that jumps into the sunburned distance.
The breeze rushes toward us, pushes against our necks
with a storm’s might.
I am leaving a city for another & the road is where I start to mean it.
It is here I forsake the hills of my birth & enter a place wide open.
Michael Akuchie is an emerging poet from Nigeria. A student of the University of Benin, his work has previously appeared on Kissing Dynamite, Sandy River Review, TERSE and elsewhere. He is the author of Calling Out Grief, a micro-chap released by Ghost City Press, 2019. He writes from Benin City, Nigeria.