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Toyin Adewale  
 

Nine to Night

Toyin Adewale-Gabriel is a poet and author of the collection, Naked Testimonies.

   


  (a poem of thanksgiving on my 38th birthday)

Like a shock of corn come into season
Like jingle bells on my nipples
Like the lilac scarf Angel wants to share
I am a brown leather bag
full of old and new things

Staring 40 in the face
I want to be still waters
Wine on the lees
Cropped hair flying in the breeze

I am the voice undying
Trampled and still speaking
Of faith learned on the cliffs where
tears are no use, friends lost and wisdom
gained in the lashing storms

I am a heart soused with contradictions
Compassioned with children’s voices
I am a mosaic encompassed with songs
I have been foolish in the courts of Ahitophel

Strengthened by the strife of the tongue
l have a chest full of human tales
stories of life’s junctions, tokens from liars
my babies, Johnson powder fresh

And poetry, my old lover
accompanies me to your palace
Where I come to be quiet
on the rock higher than l

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