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AUGUST BREAK


By Komolafe Samuel

At their arrival, we were six in all, father, mother and three of my cousins;

The holiday was a new sunrise of father's cascade.
His harsh......

A maps divides into two and you say a way is lost.
Where strength wanes, frail water halves a city apart.
Mother says that is her silence with father and that a woman's beauty is not in her curves.
I touched my hips that had started to convex and hoped they would one day plane.

Lizards dream into leaves.
Kunle says shy boys are innocent like a fool.
He would play all day like the street urchins.
Only to bring his cloths for mending in the evening.
I had loved to and so would cross-stitch the tear in his trousers.

The vapour of your exhale will make a mirror cloudy.
Lola arrived with her brothers, many novels and a tome of poems.
She is an elder cousin that knows a lot more and the day she taught me to make Egusi in balls,
She had sent me with a list of ingredients that are not available in our local market.

A sleeping soul knows no pain.
Little Ade is cheerful and fun-filled.
He would call me as swiftly as he's back-stepping into a cuddling curtain.
I would unwind the column and we would giggle as I throw him up in the air.

But this is paradise; To gather around mother on a moonless night,
when she's on the humorous hind of fireflies.
With silent cousins and neighbourhood children we would sit in a nimbus
With widening eyes and the brightness of a bonfire
We would listen to the smoothness of captivating fables
And as the calm night docks, the breeze would wane its flow to eavesdrop
Sometimes mother pauses suddenly while our delighting teeth whitens from the bliss of laughter.

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