Cadaver of Red Roses by Zaynab Bobi (Lucent Dreaming Issue 12)

Due to restrictions this poem has modified formatting.

let’s say there is an eye above the cheekbone of the sky.
though, not shaped like a star,
but like a mouth that sneaks light into our bodies—
sterilises us from the trenches of night.
like a creep. like a seed. like hope.
or let’s say there is a cracked wall
on the navel of the earth. underneath,
everything beautiful is held hostage
which one will you choose to see?
a lamp or garden? both beautiful.
the lamp: a spectrum of lost voices.
the garden: a cadaver of red roses.
the thing is: we have been broken
to walk through healing tunnels
without shattering into bits that hope can’t decode.
here, there is an inheritance the tongue holds;
revisiting the same saltwater that we’ve driven in.
do you see how everything that sips water rusts?
again, which one will you choose to be,
the lamp or the garden?


Zaynab Bobi, Frontier I, is a Nigerian poet, digital artist and photographer from Bobi. She is a member of Hilltop Creative Art Abuja, a Medical Laboratory Science student of Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto, and a Best Of The Net nominee. Her poems are published and forthcoming in Strange Horizons, FIYAH Magazine, Anomaly, West Trade Review, Agbowo, Native Skin, TST Review, and elsewhere.
T: @ZainabBobi | I: @Zaynab_i_bobi

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