Wayo Wayo

By Saheed Sunday

you think you have learnt the ways

of an African prayer-warrior: a joker

robed in black, circus garments pretending

he doesn't know that Jesus is white.

white invocations. white vocabulary. white

language. the pope blurred your retinas

with sunglasses. he called it an innovation.

the perfect way to bring God close

to your sights. as if He wasn't near you

enough to know that you were children

of the forest; to know that you have become

bastards after this sesame oil erases

your uneven tribal markings. bloody

hypochrisy! how sudden did the clay plates

you ate with become calabashes thick of libations?

how sudden did your black body become

a sacrilege of God’s temple? see,

your home no longer reeks of you.

but it knows you are polyester enough

to never be white. you wonder what

your ancestors felt like when they woke up

in their graveyards one morning and realised

that they are but Israelites standing afront

another Babylon, but it was you who betrayed them.