(Efunsetan,
Iyalode of Ibadan, assassinated 30th June 1874)
She was not laid out
Dressed in brocade or velvet
No gold or silver, no coral
Gilded the already dead stateliness of her.
She lay naked
Wrapped in a raffia mat
Already dead ready for death.
Her memories delayed
Caught up with her
And like a net that is cast wide
A net unfurled and hanging
A net with the parabolic elegance
Of a mathematical intuition
Her memories became a shroud.
The rain began in the early evening
Like the faint rustle,
The wind blowing a field of corn,
And the dry, dun dry earth darkened
Clouds gathered moved
Horsemen in a sky already depleted
Overcast with her unfurled memories
In a viscous tropical chamber
Humid with musk, the oleaginous imperative of lying in state.
They had already dug a pit
Her whole length and more,
A shallow knee-length depth
They took her birth naked body
And washed it, and oiled it
Her compact, night dark body
The stillness of death suited her.
Her crown was dressed in organdy
Bright red, brilliant vermilion,
The scarf turned and knotted gaudy
They lay her in the pit to make her
At once one with the earth again
Then they covered her over.
The darkness of death suited her.
The damp muddy mire of the earth
Smeared on their hands, their arms
Sweat beaded and glistening on the brow
The fuzz of rain on the shaven scalps
Eyes hard obsidian set in the glint
The blood-shot red of sorrow sent her
A clod of earth, mortal to death.
This final resting place
A pit in her own courtyard
Like a wound covered her up.
Rude flesh, a freshly exposed integument
First in midday sun and now dampened and darkened by
The drizzle, then the fret of tears
This pit of her resting hollow
What hinge to which door,
Which entrance and what agony
Of passage has the pit sealed over?
The marketplace was devoid of her
Midafternoon dense shadow
The women robed in Dutch block prints
Children strapped to the back
Or clinging by the teat edge
Sold or battered, counting the cowry shells
Like round red peppers narrow whistle peppers.
Across the marketspace
Words were hurled darts flying or kites
High above the canopy of the solitary baobab
Laughter, clear as bells ringing
But beneath this everyday pasture
In the heart a wound opened up
An ache gnawed at the simple place of truth.
But they had already killed her
The quickness of her in the final week
Hid like a recluse in the fold of her clothes
Clung to the wall like mimosa drooping and closed
A humiliating fragrance for one so bold
She bore her panic like a gown worn loosely
They killed her quickness dead ruthlessly.
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