Think of Others

~ after Mahmoud Darwish

As you wrap silky duvets across your body, in your bed
softer then cinnamons, anytime the sky deplores

like a mother bereft of her only child, anytime outside
becomes the belly of a freezer, arctic's relative,

think of others — birds without feathers — people like your father
and my mother under moribund bridges, seeking salvation from

the steel grip of cold under what cannot save itself from knocking
doom. As you heave that spoonful of honey to your mouth

and relish your tongue with the taste of eternity,
think of others — mouths atrophying the essence of tongues —

tongues forgetting the savour of clean water,
tongues with melting throats, throats with dying tonsils.

ABDULMUEED BALOGUN

Abdulmueed Balogun is a Nigerian poet. He edits poetry for The Global Youth Review. He won the 2021 Annual Kreative Diadem Poetry Contest. Find his poems in Decolonial Passage, Jmww Journal, Watershed Review, ROOM, Subnivean, Short Vine, Soundings East Magazine, and elsewhere. He tweets from @AbdmueedA.