BABEL 2

in the syntax of some languages, minnesota can fill in the same gap as láfénwá

i always thought my father knew how to do

          it best. this cradling of soft whispers into

a form of hissing. exit was the best way to call it.

          this shoplift from a noun, to pronoun a

tongue into a little phase of yawning. at dawn,

there was someone out there talking about how

sentences are rankshifted

          into morphemes. i picked up my father’s name

in the middle

          of this war of grammar, and dusted it against a

theory. of what use is a stopped vowel, anyway? i shouldn’t

be seen talking about the syntax

         of a language my body hasn’t built ruins in. home

is home,

         even if it doesn’t bear us a poem without dead bodies.

it is all foreplay.

         say the cloud is toppling its fibre thick skin into a pine.

say on nights like this, we startle grammar of our wide knowledge

of adjectives and their large cry.

         today the late breeze breaks its knuckles into me, into

the windbag of a boy who doesn’t know that things that cause you

pleasure can also cause you pain.

i must

have met that knowledge before, in anywhere but my father’s face.

whatever recognized this mark on me recognizes that i’m a voice

of diphtonghed breath:

          it means, in some places, minessota can fill in the same gap

as láfénwá. & that in yoruba’s syntax, ogun can translate into two

different things

           if not properly circumcised.

say ogún bàbá mi ni mò ń je

           [i inherited my father’s wealth]

say ogun bàbá mi ni mò ń je

           [i inherited my father’s tragedy]

in this scenery, you are mouth-washed to reality: the same word

           that takes you up can slam

you down.