perhappened mag
issue 1: CARNIVAL
the carnival of entrance // jesus of nazareth rides into galilee
ADEDAYO AGARAU
What is prophecy if the Lord turns his eyes away from Zion? The sky over my father’s house bleeds into our roof. Fathers laid the corpse of their first sons like palm leaves at the front of their houses. When the Lord shall come, his shadow shall hold the sun against barren wombs, the winds shall carry names like spirits, the graves shall open new songs, new flowers shall sprout out of old skulls. I carry a wound the name of my father’s lamb. As the last son, the morning pours light against my face. My mother’s faith a garden of olives. There is oil & there is gladness, my mother is the hungry gardener; Sarah before the lord gave Abraham a lamb. The knife often pleads before it cuts a throat open, but no one hears but the Lord. This is what the lord has come to show us, that no boy is whole enough to called Eden; the cactus beside the river of Bethsaida stings like a boy’s mouth. My father’s son is my father’s son after the cock crows. Jesus walks into the city of stones. The fire before him blazes across the east of my body. My father weeps from inside his prayer room. There is no survival that I do not remember. The grave welcomes a new lineage with hands that know no lie. We drink wine to the coming loss.
Adedayo Agarau is an editor, poet, and the author of The Arrival of Rain. His Chapbook, The Origin of Names selected by Chris Abani and Kwame Dawes for the New Generation African Poet, is forthcoming in July. He is the Assistant Editor at Animal Heart Press, Contributing Editor at Barren Magazine, and a poetry reader at Feral Press.