Shooting Penury | By Amina Bassey | A Poem

Emaciated —
skin pulls tight against bones,
scotched, brown, scaly.
ball is belly,
belly is full,
from eating too little.

Homely —
head is large,
hair is dry grass on arid land,
with patches that tread on patterns of eczema.

Fatigue —
eyes droop and rise,
yellow, watery and bulged,
tears aren’t far, they never are;
mouth opens, as if to wail,
then closes,
to trap air for breathing.

Small hands cling to mother’s neck,
mother grips tight on child’s rear,
mother smiles,
teeth sparsed and stained:
she waits for me to shoot.

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About the Author:

Amina Bassey was born on the 13th of April, 1995. She has just completed an OND in Mass Communucation from Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, Nigeria. In 2015, she started a literary blog Novel Afrique with her friends on which she writes the series #LagosDaily. Now, she’s working, and looking for the next thing to write.