On a night when the moon is missing, I praise the kindness of the sky for shutting the moon’s eye. For relieving her of that unblinking watch. I wonder, who reciprocates this kindness? Who gives the sky a place to hide himself? I whisper to the sky to leave, one cloud at a time, into the home of your laughter. In my list of joys, a line sings of your name. When the clouds ask how the fortune of you happened to me, I tell them I was in a poem, saying the prayer of a broken boy and you were seated in a yellow dress, blinding as a shard of the sun, quiet as an Amen.
Ọbáfẹ́mi Thanni is a writer whose poetry was shortlisted for the 2019 Christopher Okigbo Poetry Prize. He is a reader at The Masters Review and is currently making attempts at beauty. Twitter: @obafemithanni; Instagram: @obafemithanni.