after José Olivarez
because we’re here: everywhere.
loud. & colorful. & yes
we know crooked but o bless
our mothers’ hands. what miracles
they carve out of our spines.
what blessing it is to swim
in the rivers inside our fathers’
and mothers’ palms. & how we toil
to prove that the way
they move with the wind or
the current of the sea is not
in vain. it’s why we’re everywhere:
in & on the courts, in hospitals, on tv, on
the radio, in books. to make, especially,
our fathers smile. each smile a snow
leopard we’ve seen maybe once
or twice. can’t remember where
but we sure do remember the holy of it.
we’re here, singing our songs
and dancing our dances, laughing
with gravity—a long
lost kin—as it gently rocks
a paper note after another
from sweaty foreheads to the ground.
Ayokunle Falomo is Nigerian, American, and the author of African, American (New Delta Review, 2019) and two self-published collections. A recipient of fellowships from Vermont Studio Center and MacDowell, his work has been anthologized and published in print and online, including The New York Times, Houston Public Media, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Texas Review, New England Review, Write About Now among others. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from University of Houston, a Specialist in School Psychology degree from Sam Houston State University and is currently a Zell Postgraduate Fellow at the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program, where he obtained his MFA in Creative Writing—Poetry.
