Poetry

OGAGA IFOWODO

nawel

“Would you write for me your name, and scent it

with the Mediterranean flavour

of your steaming Chorba soup?” I asked at last.

She switched the basket of bread to her right hand,

set the Sauvignon in the glittering ice,

and flourished with her left in neat caps: nawel.

Her hand and her grace were one, each letter

distinct but in perfect rhythm with the rest,

save the “e” whose second and last teeth

were like soft lips curved by a smile from the spine.

I praised her in my trembling French,

her beauty beyond abject adjectives.

nawel: the face of Algier’s blissful calm,

stilled cries of Algeria’s feuding camps.

Ogaga Ifowodo 

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