Mubarak Said
On Being Asked About the War in my Body
after Paul Guest
it always takes the freezing of time,
then the eclipse of the sun,
then the squeezing of tongues,
to enter into the rubbles of my body.
there are my bones glued to my teeth,
there is a thunderbolt falling
on my diastema. yesterday,
I met a cyborg at the town square,
his face, a knife, his tongue, a furnace,
just like mine. the cyborg said we were
once in form of water before making it
our home. I’m now a bundle of burning woods.
I become an enemy to my home.
I carry the pain that is not mine.
I owed the world what I owed my body—
the war of tissues and blood,
the war of skins and bones.
what is a body without the exit-door
of smoke? I’m cold outside.
I’m a hearth from within.
& anything inside me looks black.
Bio:
MUBARAK SAID, TPC XII, SprinNG & SAF Alumni, is the winner of the 2023 Bill Ward Prize For Emerging Writers (Prose). He was born and raised in Bajoga, Gombe State. He is a member of Hilltop Creative Arts Foundation and Jewel Literary and Creativity Foundation. He has works published in Brittle Paper, Kalahari Review and many others.
