This poem is dedicated to the estimated 12.5 million men, women, and children forcibly transported from Africa to the Americas during the Atlantic Slave Trade, circa AD 1526 to 1867. You have not been forgotten!

BLUE

I

Africans in the hold fold themselves

to make room for hope. In the afternoon’s

ferocity, tar, grouting the planks like the glue

of family, melts to the run of a child’s licorice stick.

Wet decks crack, testing the wood’s mettle.

Distilled from evaporating brine, salt

dusts the floor, tickling with the measure

into time and the thirst trapped below.

II

The captain’s new cargo of Igbos disturbs him.

They stand, computing the swim back to land.

Haitians still say: Igbo pend’c or’ a ya!

But we do not hang ourselves in cowardice.

III

Sold six times on the journey to the coast,

once for a gun, then cloth, then iron

manilas, her pride was masticated like husks

of chewing sticks, spat from morning-rank mouths.

Breaking loose, edge of handcuffs held high

like the blade of a vengeful axe, she runs

across the salt scratch of deck,

pain deeper than the blue inside a flame.

IV

The sound, like the break of bone

could have been the Captain’s skull

or the musket shot dropping her

over the side, her chains wrapped

around his neck in dance.

AUTHOR: Christopher Abani a.k.a. Chris Abani, born Tuesday 27 December 1966 in Afikpo, Ebonyi State of Nigeria, West Africa.



SOURCE:
https://naijaphilia.com/blog/2024/03/26/naija-poetry-76-blue/