"I'm gonna pack my things and leave you behind" by Prachi Valechha
Overseas by Abdulbaseet Yusuff
The word, overseas, is funny when a brother says it;
all it takes is a winter full of teeth to pull the truth
off that fleshy word like fishbone
We would find that he hasn’t gone over the seas,
it is the seas that have gone over him; because
when he returns,
we lifeguard the capsized boat that is his mouth
rescue soggy consonants mangled in the wreck.
The sea is carnivorous.
I think of seas, & I think of flesh. Sometimes, fish.
Sometimes, man.
Man is made from water & man makes up water
However watery, the paradox stands
How deep do you need to dredge to draw
people from Dunbar Creek?
The sea is a body of saltwater – I’ll let the textbooks have that
The sea is bodies in saltwater
all it takes is a winter full of teeth to pull the truth
off that fleshy word like fishbone
We would find that he hasn’t gone over the seas,
it is the seas that have gone over him; because
when he returns,
we lifeguard the capsized boat that is his mouth
rescue soggy consonants mangled in the wreck.
The sea is carnivorous.
I think of seas, & I think of flesh. Sometimes, fish.
Sometimes, man.
Man is made from water & man makes up water
However watery, the paradox stands
How deep do you need to dredge to draw
people from Dunbar Creek?
The sea is a body of saltwater – I’ll let the textbooks have that
The sea is bodies in saltwater
Abdulbaseet Yusuff is a Nigerian writer. His works appear or are forthcoming in Brittle Paper, Rattle, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Kalahari Review, Memento: An Anthology of Contemporary Nigerian Poetry. He's on Twitter @bn_yusuff.
Prachi Valechha is a freelance cartoonist and animator from India. Valechha loves to make Toons and Toons for Tunes.
You can find more of their work at: instagram.com/rainbowteeth
You can find more of their work at: instagram.com/rainbowteeth
