Sea Boys
By Wale Ayinla
Egbo naa…
Which of the boys is a reed?
Along the edge of a pond is a desert
curved to its knuckles.
Which of the boys goes around with rain
bottled in a flask?
Sifting through a pile of waters
knotted into words and blue tongues,
blue like a whale, blue like a name
forced on a passage, I find a noise
from a dark cloud crying over a head.
Which of the boys has a relative
on the other side of the map?
Which of you walk the morning
with books tied to his tongue?