(crayons on cartridge paper: 2005)
 
a white pigeon flutters towards the margin
of a page, as if escaping a house on fire.
the roof of the house by the stream
 
could be burning, but how could one be so sure
the red crayon that coloured love
also pigmented fire? it is autumn,
 
and the magnolias have lost their chlorophyll.
 
from the pigeon’s blue eyes, the stream
is flowing backwards, & from where i stand,
it is flowing forward. there are no wrong
 
or right answers in this landscape.
this butterfly effect—a ripple of yellow
litterfall that sails me downwards
 
to where a barbie doll sits
      in what looks like a small field of red roses
or a puddle of blood.
 
the doll, so still, sits in the middle of the shade
 
without telling the history of the brushstrokes—
if the white pigeon is a self-portrait
of the artist whitened by tears
      or a portrait of God.

Winner’s Biography

Sodïq Oyèkànmí is a poet, dramaturge and editor from Nigeria. He has a BA in Theatre Arts, and he is pursuing a MA in Cultural and Media Studies at the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan. A 2022/23 Poetry Translation Centre (UK) UNDERTOW Fellow, he is a 2024 Best of The Net winner, and 2x Pushcart Prize Nominee. A recipient of the Unserious Collective Fellowship (2023), he won the SEVHAGE/Hyginus Ekwuazi Poetry Prize (2023). He is a freelance poetry editor at Lucent Dreaming (Wales, UK). His works have been published in Frontier Poetry, LOLWE, Modern Poetry in Translation, North Dakota Quarterly, ONLY POEMS, Passages North, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Wales, Strange Horizons, The Polygot, and elsewhere. Find him on X @sodiqoyekan & on Instagram @sodiq_oyekanmi