a bird swoops across powerline cables,
two others perch;
these creatures have no footwear but
have the cleanest of feet,
so clean that electricity cannot penetrate.
a man slips into a gutter, hit his head
on concrete & life flows out of him
through a stream of blood;
that’s how a slippery shoe submitted a father
finding food for his family to what finished him.
i swat a humming mosquito & hit
my fingers on the wall,
struggling,
it crashes into a pair of shoe
– abandoned to carry decades of story like dust:
curled into a root knot,
it sent its wearer down
a wooden footbridge
that spread across a sacred river,
the man’s body was seen the third day;
floating,
contemplating either to go
forward or backward,
his shoe configuring the cloud
for an exit.
Taofeek Ayeyemi
Taofeek "Aswagaawy" Ayeyemi is a Nigerian lawyer, writer and author of the chapbook Tongueless Secrets (Ethel Press, 2021) and a collection aubade at night or serenade in the morning (Flowersong Press, 2021). A BotN and Pushcart Prize Nominee, his works have appeared in CV 2, Lucent Dreaming, Up-the-Staircase Quarterly, FERAL, ARTmosterrific, Banyan Review, Conscio, Porter House Review, the QuillS and elsewhere. He won the 2021 Loft Books Flash Fiction Competition, 2nd Place in 2021 Porter House Review Poetry Contest, and Honourable Mention in 2021 Oku-no-hosomichi Soka Matsubara Haiku Contest and 2020 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize among others. He is @Aswagaawy on X (fka Twitter).
