Niran Okewole

Lost Poems

(For D.W.)

Among the disjecta membra,
the ruins of a great house,
an old monkey mountain dreamer
rummages through drawers
for a pack of cigarettes, for a Pushkin quote
given to him by Joseph, the Jew from Russia,
who himself lost a hundred rouble note
beside the lemon Neva.

He is Achille, an angler
fishing for lost love, for Helen,
searching for Africa.

In his dream he becomes a marabout
wandering through a market in Samarkand,
or an Irish farm boy wintering out.

The Radius

The ulna twisted round it like a wooden carving
Inspired by the Kama Sutra, but it had a crack
Where the pellet first hit him. The radius
Itself was spared, perfect prop for the open air
circus.

They learn how it is a long forearm bone, extends
Elbow to wrist, prismatic and bends
With a narrow medullary cavity, strong wall
Of compact bone, trabeculae of spongy tissue arching
Up the shaft to the fovea capituli.

It once belonged to Charles the tailor, twisting it
so deftly as he threaded a needle through the stylus
of the Singer sewing machine while his little Linus
watched wide-eyed. It could spin a baseball so
perfectly no batsman could hit it, himself whacking
so hard he was unstoppable in the street league.

An ex-fan morphed into this rebel with a lisp,
Asking “long sleeve, or short sleeve?”
Too shocked to answer
So the axe fell just above the lower
Border of the humerus.

Still, one radius was better than none, granted
the dubious honour of watching a diamond snitch
sodomized with the very bone they’d hacked off his
arm.

The commandant, known for cleanly ways, rinsed off blood
And crap before tossing it carelessly in the sand
Beside the dying fires. And here it is now,
Specimen in a biology class for shell-shocked
children.