Plucking a Snake
By Abdullah O. Jimoh
In our backyard, alongside other kids,
I was plucking mangoes by throwing
baton-like sticks at the fruits. The fruits
fell and thudded on the floor, sometimes
on our heads. We'd had enough of them
already loaded in our pockets but we
could not bring ourselves to halt the plucking
until one of us threw his stick up and plucked
a snake. As it landed on the ground and
we saw it was a snake-fruit, none of us
wanted it so we screamed and scampered
away. Having fallen from such a long distance
from the top of the tree to the ground, it could
not hastily slither away, so papa who heard our
screams came out & met it there & killed it.
Abdullah O. Jimoh (he/him) is a linguist and a poet from Lagos, Nigeria. He holds a bachelor's degree in linguistics. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in Acedia Journal, South Florida Poetry Journal, Modern Poetry in Translation, A Long House, Mudroom, Sky Island, Tint Journal, Gyroscope review, Efiko Magazine, The Shallow Tales Review, Afritondo and elsewhere. He is a poetry reader at Variant Literature.