Owiwi!
Owiwi!
I’m called
By this
Nickname which
Is an owl;
Yoruba
People are not kind
With nicknames. They can
Call an old woman
Graveyard, not because
She is old or cold.
It may be that this woman had
Had many husbands who died in
Her arms. For me, it didn’t help
That I could not sway the day in
My way, that I make hay when the
Moon holds sway. And it didn’t help
That I had bulging eyes that sees
Beyond the horizon of myths
That plague the nooks of every boarding house. So I wake
Into adulthood just in time to live up to this
name. On a shelf in my parlor is a host of me-
dals; they become my plumage when I stand in the front
of a mirror, upright, with my large broad head ready
to hunt. I put my inked-talons in my pocket and
check myself again in my third eye. I move my lips;
a beak, because I am an Ibadan man. To live
in Lagos is to become crepuscular, so that
I find myself becoming a bird, like the same owl
We once caught during a storm back in school. In that night,
The owl became me perhaps because we had the same
Spirit as others feared its omen and its calmness.
Ahmad Holderness is a poet, aspiring writer, and a medical doctor. His poems and haikus have
appeared in different journals. He believes poetry can be used as a medication and hope his
collections can be bought at a drugstore in the future. He writes from Lagos, Nigeria where he
enjoys the aromatherapy of family life.
