DIE A LITTLE by Dami Ajayi

DIE A LITTLE

I

Little child, have we met?

Perhaps you reeled out of some UNICEF poster.

Bad air blotches mosquito-kissed skins.

Anaemia is an antithesis of capitalist ads.

Poverty porn exerts no age restrictions.

The ticking clock tocks:

every tick talks of you

dying.

Queen of the malnutrition pageant,

your sludge red cells don’t hold back sickly smiles.

Fleeting dreams French-kiss the air

your sparse cells are like a tiara of thorns.

If we all die a little,

perhaps you will die a little less.

II

Needle kisses skin with practiced ease,

rips into blood conduits.

And a part of me leaks into this bag.

I die a little to quell this child’s thirst.

Mosquitoes are to Africa what vampires are to Hollywood.

Africa’s towering giants wont conquer little David;
no, Jehovah is my witness.

Tomorrow when your sheen is restored,

I shall smile for the first time.

Bio: Dami Ajayi is a Nigerian medical doctor, poet, short story writer and music critic. He is the author of Clinical Blues and Daybreak, both acclaimed poetry collections.