Aster Lit: Wanderlust
Issue 6—Summer 2022
PORTRAIT OF A BOY CRUSADING FOR JOY
Samuel Ajani, Nigeria
In recent months
I seek light in all places:
between the troughs and crests
of my mother's silence.
in fumes of cigarettes and weeds.
between fissures of crackling walls
& rimpling fingers.
in beads of evening tears
when I stroll around
the edge of my father's vault.
I crave more than earth can give—
my joy wants more
joy. & here is the nascence of misery
charcoaling the moon of happiness.
Who can bridge the nestling space
between desire and hope? Here, I desire
laughter bereft of the nibbles of memories,
a smile coruscating with hope
like the morning after
a dusk of cloudbursts.
I redound myself
like a denuded room—
this is how I collage hope
into palms of supplication—
how I moult desires
into mouth of prayers—
my joy,
alms for another joy.
Ajani Samuel Victor, Frontier II, is a black writer from the trenches. His work has appeared/forthcoming on Blue Marble Review, TST Review, Roughcut Press, Augment Review, and elsewhere. He was the winner of 2021 Prisoner of Love Poetry Contest.