by Omotoyosi Salami
You come looking for me, sweaty hands in pockets,
bare feet against hard gravel, hard flesh against soft man.
You come with your large hands and full hair and the body I’ve come to love.
There’s a knock on my door, it’s you, and a bullet swooshes past my ear.
There is a trembling here
that you have induced.
I hope you have not forgotten
the inevitable things?
I told you
there will be no tongue-dropping-on-the-marble in this event, no honour-threatening lust,
no milk bodies, no throats raised in anticipation, ready to sing, none of that.
Only me, the giant, and the cat.
So straighten your face already and throw in one smile. Or two.
Or as many as your honour can allow you to falsify, without the threat
of it falling apart.
Did you think your red lips, miles away, were enough?
Here’s what I’ll have:
I’ll have the money and the gifts and the man on his knees, please.
I’ll have silence, and something to scratch my thighs with.
I’ll have hair on my throat. Your compliance when I say so.
I’ll have strange clothes in the wardrobe, have
extra toothbrushes and towels and leashes.
There are many things that I want; I am
a most greedy bitch
but you’ll love it anyway, you’ll love all of this,
since you already love me.
Omotoyosi Salami is a poet and writer living in Lagos, Nigeria. A lot of her writing is influenced by the various inequalities that exist in her country. She has been published in Vagabond City Lit, Constellate Lit, and Brittle Paper. If you do not find her reading a book, you will find her writing something in her phone’s Notes app.
