Sanctuaries of Light

by Joshua Effiong

Nathan Dumlao

dear white brethren/do you ever think about the thickness of my accent?// do you ever wonder why my larynx wasn’t enslaved

too?// here in this cold room/i begin to untangle the names of my fathers/& brothers/& mothers/& sistas from the cloak

of intergenerational trauma//i begin to oil wounds/dem libraries of memories/& beautifying of dem scars as receipts

for survival//last night/i allowed my spirit wander through the city of Minneapolis/to relive every second of May 25, 2020//

before everything happened//before the news infected mainstream media//before the world caught the fever//before Justice kissed

daylight//dear white brethren/i write this to you through the artistically woven lyrics of Tobe Nwigwe/that in the syntax of

Zainab/Olúwabámisé/Kojo/Oghenefejiro/Kofi/Malik/& Aziza lies the anthologies of things we choose not to remember//things

that make us look over our shoulders/ in trepidation of the next angered white that might choose to vent by decorating another

blxck body with holes// say my name/& feel what it does to your tongue// this is how we grow thick skins for when they see us

we are only sanctuaries of light//this is how we palliate our aggrieved spirit with resilience//once again/i do not come by

chance/i do not swallow the half of the yellow sun and drink of the Atlantic ocean to cower//dear white brethren/

i present to you a flowering wound

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Joshua Effiong, Frontier VI, is a writer and digital artist from the Örö people of Nigeria. He is author of a poetry chapbook, Autopsy of Things Left Unnamed (2020). His works has been published or forthcoming in 580 split, Wrongdoing Magazine, Vast Literary Press, Native Skin and elsewhere. He tweets @JoshEffiong.