I ask my body ‘what is life?’ it says ‘dance’ 

because dance is a way the body finds liberation
through lyrics, solace in songs, an overeager mosaic
of marinated moments & coralled colours colliding.

Because dance is the body defying borders
When your country carved out a scar & told you where
to flow. Told you that a boy with a rainbow is a sign
of flood & not the cure – the many colours of love
& not the world’s  grim gray raining fire on men
holding men in their bosoms & not by their throats.

Because dance is the body saying ‘I too know how to flow
in rhythm with the moon, sing sonatas on a Nubian night.
Know how to bend my beliefs into a body of water.
Projectile & pirouette around your arms – a delta
which is a border until ocean calls it its own, places its finger
liquid and luring on this land & anoints it in the ways of water
anoints it in the ways of dance.’

Salam Wosu, a poet and aspiring novelist, is a Chemical Engineer from Nigeria. His works interrogate grief, depression, love, antichauvinism and sexuality. He was shortlisted for the Korean Nigerian Poetry Fiesta  award 2017 & 2019. His works are on or forthcoming in Glass Poetry Press, Kissing Dynamite, Dream Noir, PIN, RIC journal and Mounting the Moon (anthology of queer Nigerian poems). He is @salam_wosu on all platforms.