​​Wild rose, al-Fudayl.
All that difficult devotion
​breaking the stem.
​​Does it do,
soften the impact?
Pruning light, thick and low
in the conflict of pavement.
​​Is that it? —
the company of windows bright
as tags between your tusks of cold teeth
handkerchief a little cotton a little organza
dabbing your leak of concaves.
Come in regardless you say
​​Don’t mind
there are no windows or doors.
Only my reach and limit.
Varying in a small song.
Daddy, daddy.
​​Don’t mind
my slat of rib and its otto of rose.
The use of vertigo.
My dangle of feet.
The minute-hand beauty of a loom
of hardwon yarn round this tesserae of skin
clinical to the marrow.
​​Wild rose, al-Fudayl.
All the internal distance of city is you.
Including the window-kindness of a breaking day.

Winner’s Profile

Isaiah Adepoju is a Nigerian resident in the West, Ile-Ife, Osun State, where he currently studies Literature-in-English. He is a fellow of two national writing residencies, and the UNDERTOW Poetry Fellowship, UK. His debut novel was traditionally published in the UK in 2024, and he currently interns as an editor at 20.35 Africa Journal.

Isaiah Adepoju is the winner of the Akachi Chukwuemeka Prize for Literature, 2025.