Human Suya[i]

Red eyes gaze upon roasted flesh
the lunch with no picnic mat.
Rather than sit,
they seek to run.

Women in colorful wrappers run in devastation
Their bare feet slapping the scorched sand
Their hearts pump with trepidation
as they seek to flee this land.

They throw their belongings in white trucks
and hope to avoid the massacre

They sit in anguish at police barracks
Staring at the green and white Nigerian flag
that waves from the top of the building.

Pregnant women sit
Thinking about the women
whose unborn babies have escorted them to the grave
Children sit on the coarse sandy soil
Hugging their knees close to their chest
Tears running down their infant cheeks
Hoping their absent families are alive.

Hausa men in mud stained white garments
Marching around Kano city
They point at the sky
Rusted iron machetes
Long iron hooks
Eager to cut off
the first Christian they sight
and chanting “Allah ne yasa!”

Hellish flames roar at houses of Jesus believers
The smell of burning churches
The smell of burning businesses
The smell of burning of cars
with stickers that read
“Jesus is my reliever”

The smoke starts to fade
They haul the bodies
Some partly burnt, crying and amputated
Others still and bloody,
Leaving their families desolated

Just yesterday she sat on the brown stool in the market
Braiding her daughter’s hair
Pulling it tight into fine cornrows
Today her body is cut in half
Bloody intestines sprouting from each half
Her little ones sit around
They weep torrents
Torrents that cannot be dried up
Even by the hottest harmattan wind.

Mothers cradle the still bodies of children they once breast-fed
They stare at charred children
Singed by the fire of religious holocaust
Aghast eyes glistened like oiled obsidian
Debris of hearts that are never scoured

Hands clasped together in prayer
They seat on the brown pews in church
gazing upon the cracked paint
 lying behind the wooden crucifix
They stare at the candles on the altar
elegantly arched to the right.
Their wax gently melting.
Candles that burn again for the souls of the dead
In this city of religious embers.

[i] Suya is a meat delicacy in northern Nigeria. It is made by roasting sticks of meat over a brazier. 

This poem was inspired by the frequent religious riots that take place in Kano State, Northern Nigeria especially the recent "political" violence that occurred after the 2011 presidential elections.


*Also, I think it's necessary for me to note that this is does not represent my view of all muslim Nigerians. I grew up in Kano, Nigeria and some of my closest friends are muslim