earth’s foreman ploughs 
with long intercontinental hands 
for spawned seeds in her womb.
on massachusetts review it is 
the intensification of anti-Asian pathogen racism 
that follows a patterned script 
of three acts: invasion, eradication 
& strenghtening of white bodies on the screen 
then i turn to the dead street outside 
my window half-opened & half-shut 
for life against the witty hand in the air, 
marvelling at the power of microbes; 
a world beyond unaided eyes, non-cellular
strands wearing tailored protein coats, 
the bad habits of china & the church bell
tolling in the empty cathedral downtown.
i lean into the quiet still; (dead streets), 
dead shores, grounded airplanes, 
putin’s rumoured lions in moscow, 
un statistics & wikipedia.
stay at home! stay at home! 
abuja cowers in her radiant blue watch
for terrorists, herdsmen fracas, stranded
ghosts lurking―the foreman tricking 
in shapes of every form 
malleable, brittle, metallic, irradiant, 
one virus, one influenza      
holding earth ransom.
                        

love now as you always will 
when you’re half the world away

aeroplanes no longer fly the earth
for hearts to spill in episodes  
of different time zones, ogling
at delights of spicy airhostesses
kissed in dreams. spectacles of
window shoppers in daylight,
crowded airport lounges, walkways, 
school buses & early humans.
night & day are all the same 
for a sparrow’s return; the frigid bed 
is warm, fluffy feelings in cuddled 
spaces of mating cries. zero jet-lags. 
zero i have an emergency & 
sudden wings in flight

as the world is flitting away
let life & death remain in one body
                        

there were nine birds since february 
an agile rooster with five wives, 
three growing chicks in her wired 
cage. it crowed & flapped bright red 
feathered wings every morning 
to suck in the bleary sun 
for the household as she served  
their measured rations of shredded corn 
& wheat before mass. they did not join
the fast of lent & pecked the patterns
of her broom when she swept
the compound, filling the centre 
of her lonely life all nine of them 
before it happened; ants infestation
since last month she did not notice. 
the proud cock died on easter sunday 
& she wept, plucking the feathers 
in her kitchen. 
in the dead of the fevered night,  
a stranger hand robbed three hens,
one stranded chick murdered by her 
neighbour’s useless dog.
she dreamed of boys boiling
their flesh, singing ‘we dealt with
that old woman,’ the smell of chicken 
spice clinging to her sedate 
nostrils. yesterday one left, her most 
treasured hen. this morning she rose 
in summary of all their popping sounds
& killed them all, crying as she stripped 
their bodies, longing a future filled with birds.