from my mother’s   daughter’s waist beads
& tuft of free-hand woven hairstyle

see the culture returning   from unhealthy
unhealthy bodies   exiting cancerous
anglicism.

truth is   there’s too much homeliness
in breaking kola with   people’s language
too much nativity in offering libations.

& happy we’re picking our old veils
from toying with them in the pigsty.

we usually bathe in a confined room—
a step or two   away from the dining room
but who knows its freedom
running to dive into & swim in the river?

today   we’re decolonizing everything
bail out ourselves from the psycho-incarceration

& now dine on garnished abacha
gulp zobo from brown calabash

& quaffing free rushing waters   the one from
Ebonyi river   & greeting everybody in the

mother tongue & that’s what it means to be   home & home running through your veins.

– Nweke Benard Okechukwu