Poem: Break Time

By Majekodunmi Oseriemen Ebhohon

MOTORCYCLES empty classrooms
into bush paths.
Exercise books open in puddles.
An orange bursts beneath a shoe.

At the union office,
oil climbs the side of a pot.
A woman snaps bones with her molars.
Two men scrape stew from coolers
and wipe pepper from their lips with files.

A teacher kneels somewhere in Oriire.
Rope enters skin.
Grass enters knees.
A cutlass lifts sunlight
then brings back blood.

By one o’clock,
someone folds puff-puff into nylon,
someone asks for more Coke,
someone loosens a belt
before a mountain of santana and abọdi,

while a head rolls into weeds
with an eye full of sand.