morning crow escorts the
furnace feasting in your chest with
the rhythm of your heartbeat. what do
you do to the heart losing its crown to the wind?
you crawled as a wounded
snail to the doctor and the banshee scream
that pumped from your mouth
plastered on her table at her report:
Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease.
you’re chewing hope as the wheel leads
you to the theatre, and the crumps
grow wings:
I…will… live
I…will… live
I… will…live

Grace Alioke is a Nigerian writer and poet, decorator and a student of University of Benin. She writes only when her pen draws her. Her works have been published in Praxis magazine, Analogies & Allegories, Havilah Woman, and forthcoming in others.