The one who stargazes from the safety of Mars
By Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi
I have seen videos from Mars—
the Earth, a flickering star.
When the bombs rise, can you see us glitter?
Does war become another light in the sky?
When a child in Palestine, Ukraine, Myanmar,
Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Congo,
wishes on the same star,
how long does it take before it falls
into God’s hand?
And when it does,
does it thud like another bomb,
the night cracking open into dawn?
Look at this: another video
of a fate-pocketed morning,
angels returning amidst the traffic of smoke.
Look at that whiteness—
yesterday it was a father.
And look at yesterday:
children, toothless,
speaking the language of wailing
with perfect fluency,
like your silence.
Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi, a black poet, won the Deconflating Surveillance with Safety contest and received commendation at the 2024 HART Prize for Human Rights. He was a finalist in the Hayden's Ferry Review Poetry Prize '23, with work featured or forthcoming in POETRY, Heavy Feather Review, Strange Horizons, and more.