The rain leaves us ripe & waiting.
orange bright, as boiled persimmon displayed on the slab,
thriving under a swelled rot— the size of our grief.
the way the greengrocer gropes the fruit,
crushes the kaki how a colonist ruins our sleep by feet: a thumping on our shutter.
I’m trying not to mistake vitamin for violence,
I’m trying not to lose my tooth to the malnourishment.
the grocer shoves the fruit into a cellophane, & my hands still joy-wet,
unburdens it on Mariam’s head like the load that it was.
this child too, a burden earned from the sameness between harassment & haram.
I spoon-fed the term rape to Mariam till she came of age,
held the word by its letter like a live bait
& we nurture the suffering: the pink weakness of a wound. an inner bleeding.
Mariam’s dress flinches, and a hemorrhage accosts us.
her room, still foul-scented with the scuffling of a strong man.
& while we argued the cramp away on the long queue,
I dissect parts of her body that ends with a syllable— ache wet & fractured
with blood: thighs, tongue & swollen thighs.
a Caucasian pushes from behind, & all our harsh consonant pours to the ground.
this too, a sin to be mopped.
Mariam parboils the persimmon with love.
a citrus greening, diseased on the plate.
she dresses the fuming starch,
& I treat my tongue to the plague afflicting my lips, like the Caucasian at the mall.

Nnadi Samuel (he/him/his) holds a B.A in English & literature from the University of Benin. Author of Nature Knows A Little About Slave Trade (Sundress Publication, 2022). His works have been previously published/forthcoming in Suburban Review, Seventh Wave Magazine, NativeSkin lit Magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, Quarterly West, Common Wealth Writers & elsewhere. Winner of the Canadian Open Drawer contest 2020,  & the International Human Right Arts Festival Award (IHRAF) New York 2021. He got an honorable mention for the 2022 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Contest.