your toenails are broken (a little paint could lie for you)

only one earring dangles

(The other got lost somewhere

between a punch & a run.)

The train itself never truly stopped. It only moved forward. Always forward.

I was no longer in space, but in my bedroom. Mpoyo was gone, but Jana was still by my side, wiping my forehead and holding my hand. I looked at her and, for the first time, I clung to her, too.

The last time he reached out was on his 50th birthday, six years ago. Your mother was still alive. He had sent a picture of his family a couple of years before that. It showed him and his wife, a Turkish woman, with one girl and a younger boy, lighter than anyone in your family has ever been.

taken in the hour / when even shadows crouch

we had had that song before/ in kigali/ in boipatong/ in zimbabwe

[Hear the story in the author’s voice—audio reading included]

The girls watched as their grandmother fanned out the cash and examined the bills, searching for counterfeits, counting and recounting. Her bangles chattered like teeth on her arms.

Lagos is an immensely populated city. The population figure is so high that there is a running dispute between the National Population Commission and the Lagos government over how many people actually live here.

It ends with a jaded god. Ogbunabali. The god who kills at night. They say he grants a request in exchange for five souls. It is called the ritual of exchange. It is well known. But, like every tale, there are four parts to it. The part you tell. The part I tell. The part we agree not to tell. The part Wiwe tells.

The waiter at the counter watches them. Short-lived glances driven by questions. Questions about these two men, none older than twenty-eight, who walk into a near-empty restaurant on a quiet evening.