Ernest Ohia

it’s november again & the cold morning wind is thrashing outside 
your small room, threatening to knock down the candles by the windows, 
again. it is such a silly thing, the wind wailing. to make that much fuss 
for nothing is silliness, besides the candles have melted themselves 
into permanence. here you lie awake & sad. who wouldn’t be
sad waking up in this world? everything stills itself into quiet horror
now that the shortening days run into each other. your lungs are red,
the weather is bad. there has been a bubble of devastation roaming 
the world like a fugitive. this year alone, the weather news carried words 
like extreme & hottest that nobody, not even those with enough heart,
ever readied themselves for the worst. not even you.

one time, you turned to your lover & said, people have no appreciation for life anymore,
that was before the atrocities began in Gaza, Sudan, & Congo. in agreement, he told you 
about his neighbor’s daughter who microwaved their cat after a dare. that was cruel,
he had said, so cruel I couldn’t believe it, I cried for the kitten, it could not get
its breath. you looked into his face as he spoke, this silly man. cruel.
the word hung from his lips, circled his shoulders & landed 
on the terrazzo floor, it consumed your feet. cruel. such a soft word, a forest exhausted, 
but you recognized it. because now, somewhere in the world love has forgotten its way 
home, is lying spent out on the curb & suddenly someone is holding their bloodied neighbor 
by the neck, leveling their house, quaking the ground underneath their feet. 
on the other side of the world some fighter jets are carrying out their attacks, 
the casualties high on the last, white-knuckled hours of their lives, the rest dying 
& dying. 

on the other side of the wall, the wind has gone away, has stopped
screaming so you shut your eyes in the steeping quiet & wonder 
what new unscathed things in the world remain.

Ernest Ohia is a queer Nigerian poet and editor, currently pursuing an MFA in poetry at the University of Alabama, where he also serves as Design Editor for Black Warrior Review. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lolwe, The Muse, 20:35 Africa, paraselene, Sho Poetry, Agbowo, Rigorous, and elsewhere. His chapbook manuscript, The Wanting Flesh, was a finalist for the 2025 Garden Party Collective Chapbook Contest. He is the 2025 Sita Martin Prize in Poetry.