Abiku: Poem by Wole Soyinka

In vain your bangles cast
Charmed circle at my feet;
I am Abiku, calling for the first
And repeated times.

Must I weep for goats and cowries
For palm oil and the sprinkled ash?
Yams do not sprout in amulets
To earth Abiku's limb.

So when the snail is burnt in his shell,
Whet the heated fragment, brand me
Deeply on the breast. You must know him
When Abiku calls again.

I am the squirrel teeth, cracked
The riddle of the palm. Remember
This, and dig me deeper still into
The god's swollen foot.

Once and the repeated time, ageless
Though I puke. And when you pour
Libations, each finger points me near
The way I come, where

The ground is wet with mourning,
White dew suckles flesh birds
Evening befriends the spider, trapping
Flies in wind-froth.

Night, and Abiku sucks the oil
From lamp. Mother! I'll be the
Supplicant snake coiled on the doorsteps
Yours the killing cry

The ripest fruit was the saddest;
Where I crept, the warmth was cloying.
In the silence of webs, Abiku moans, shaping
Mounds from the yolk.