Ghost & the Clothesline
Ifeoluwa Ayandele
You always leave things
hanging in the air: daughter
& hope. You wear sunglasses
over them. & you remember:
you saw your girl’s ghost
picking her clothes from
the clotheslines. & that was
after the spray of herdsmen’s
bullets on the farm gave her
a badge on her chest. & the wind,
like a boy’s fingers on his toys,
picks her dresses from the clotheslines.
& for once, you know how clotheslines
cannot clip together daughter & hope:
you just leave them hanging in the air.
Ifeoluwa Ayandele has completed an MA in English (Literature) at the University of Lagos, Nigeria. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Verse Daily, Rattle, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Little Stone Journal, Pidgeonholes, Burning House Press, Neologism Poetry Journal, Kin Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. He tweets @IAyandele