Origin Myths

Ọbáfẹ́mi Thanni

I prefer the version where I began as a clot of blood, yearning

into my first ache. I must have begun that way, yearning as I am

now for my grandmother’s voice—translating Arabic, asking me

to eat just a little more, laughing at the news of another stolen billion.

I lie when I call this news. We expect to be looted enough for three

lifetimes. We are grateful when the thief is modest. When he manages

to leave a tarred road behind at the cost of enough commonwealth

for a mere lifetime. There is a version where this rot began with the

coups—youths exacerbating what they dreamt of correcting. Or further

back, with the amalgamation. In another version, a youth becomes

a third-term-seeking president and service in every office is supplanted

by self. Imagine an owambe where your appointed ushers gorge themselves on your food

while you starve, while your gorge rises. I recall the versions in her voice.

What will all that wealth afford them she asks but more spacious rooms

to mourn in? I yearn to spite death. To spite the earth hushing her voice. I forget

in what version I began as mud—malleable with need in the creator’s hands.

In all things, al-hamdu lillāh, she used to say. I cannot thank the

year that took her. I want only to kiss its lips and draw blood.

ỌBÁFẸ́MI THANNI is a poet whose works of poetry and fiction have received Pushcart Prize nominations. An alumnus of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study's Writers' Workshop, he spends his time between the cities of Ibadan, Abuja and Lucille, making attempts at beauty.