Omnipres[s]ence
by Marvinci Bobbylex-Oduali
Omnipres[s]ence
Grim overhead power lines droop into smiles—
something straight out of a primary school textbook.
Once, a classmate told me & two others how he was
held in freefall by something supernatural. Just now
I encounter the hyperbole, those wings of God,
stumbling down the steep road back home in bittersweet torpor.
I have never known descent to be this freeing.
& I am not the only thing falling: twin ụdaras roll down
the black tarpaulin proofing petty goods against
the oh-so-sinful world. The seller becomes saviour
to what she will soon devour, now locked
in both her palms. I believe we are captors by nature
of this clenching heart, trapped in the rib-cage
the way two men trap God in His own words,
try to sell Him for the hefty price of a soul entranced
by boys scattered like wild horses over the field
of concrete—where a church was dismantled
when it lost the last of its essence.
They are barefoot: this is still holy ground
to them, God still lingers in the air.
& I am still falling.
Marvinci, as always, proves that literary excellence is not just an aesthetic or a performance. It is innate, it is what he is made of.