A Poem by Adedayo Agarau

starvation

the bus rattles through the highway line.
a lorry passes by us and takes the corner
onto the interstate. everyone who is not
asleep is speaking to someone. we pass
through the country homes where, outside,
a man & a man are kissing. a person waves
at the bus & their mother knocks them.
it's april & wet & on the radio, they
say the storm is coming again tonight.
how rainy it is in cardiff, yet its thunder
understands decorum. how wet you’ve been
years before i knelt to eat you.

Please find an Word accessible copy of this poem here.

Adedayo Agarau is a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, a 2022 Robert Hayden Scholarship fellow and a recipient of the 2022 Stanley Awards for International Research at the University of Iowa. He obtained his MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop ’23. His poems have been featured in Poetry Magazine, Poetry Society of America, World Literature Today, Iowa Review, and Boulevard. He is the author of the chapbooks, Origin of Names (African Poetry Book Fund), and The Arrival of Rain (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press). Adedayo is the Editor-in-Chief at Agbowó: An African magazine of literature and art.