The Secretary of Interior

(for Emeritus Professor Biodun Jeyifo @80)

By Makekodunmi Ebhohon

IT is easy to imagine the brain
as a grand, open-door museum,
a place where any wandering idea
can wipe its feet on the mat
and walk right into the central gallery.

But today I am thinking about
the Blood-Brain Barrier—
that quiet, unthanked clerk
sitting at a small desk
just behind the ears.

He is the most polite border guard
in the history of nations.
He doesn’t carry a weapon,
only a very fine sieve
and a deep suspicion
of anything arriving
in a tailored suit
from a distant, foggy capital.

While the rest of the world
is catching the common cold of empire,
or breaking out in the itchy rash
of a bleached toxin,
this barrier is busy
checking the fine print
on the blood.

_“I’m sorry,”_ he says,
nudging back a heavy metal
or a vial of offshore spite,
_“but your name isn’t on the list.”_

It is a demanding job,
sorting the local oxygen
from the metropolitan sludge,
ensuring the thoughts stay
as fresh as a morning in Ibadan
while the sewage of the metropole
is redirected
to the proper pipes.

Eighty,
with synapses still shining,
un-smudged by the fingerprints
of the many kings
who tried to handle them.

I like to think of his mind
as the only room in the house
where the windows are wide open,
but the screen is so fine
it doesn’t even let in
the ghost of a colonial fly.

***

Ebhohon, a Nigerian poet and playwright, author of ‘The Great Delusion’, winner of the ANA Prize for Drama, 2025, writes from Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria