Clement Abayomi
Transience
& we will be free from the rules of
survival like doped fishes reduced
to silence in cold water, like the last,
swift dash of fainting egrets—white
flash against green memories & seasons
of lost. & our wings will refuse to bear the
promise of flight & there, under that frigid
heaviness, we will rest & turn pale like
bloodless crests. & we will be laid low as
movement will no longer shake our feet.
& we will open our ears without calls to
laugh, without calls to cry, without calls—
& a ritual of farewells will ferry our flesh
into the waiting earth. For we’ve long known
that this life we wear is a borrowed garment.
—
Clement Abayomi is a Nigerian poet, critic, and short story writer. His works have been featured in Penned in Rage Literary Journal, African Writers Magazine, Poets Choice, Teambooktu, and Writers Space Africa, among others. Abayomi was longlisted for the Brigitte Poirson Literature Prize 2024 and emerged as the winner of both the ANAKwara Creative Writing Prize for Poetry and the Inaugural Bridgette James Poetry Competition in 2024.