-Alfred Olaiya

Ekúndayo forced me to tell a story that evening.
The others, intoxicated with palm wine,
chanted along with him:
“Tell us a story!
Tell us a story!”

So I told them the story of that beautiful lady,
Abiké,
the black beauty of Lalonpe;
one of the king’s dancers.

Blessed with a curvy body
that glitters with the dangling of her full beads,
swerving to the rhythm of the royal drums.

At dusk, with the sun falling behind the palms
and the lowly wind breaking through the leaves,
her footsteps broke the virginity of rustling fronds, as she glided down the river path.

At the riverside, calm like a hushed toddler,
she began a song.
The wave surged from the golden glims,
and unruffled the river, conceiving a tuneful cadence.

With her earthenware balanced on her head,
unsupported by hands,
she danced to the mystical rhythmn
as she pierced her way through the wave,

right into the whirling billows
and vanished away with the foams.

This she did on every fifth moon,
but one day,
she went and never came back.

Then I dreamed of her in a moonlit night.
She was by a naked tree
beside two dark huts.

With her earthenware placed on her head,
emitting fire,
she danced again to the mystical rhythm
emerging from the unclad tree.

Her body shone with the gloom of the bright moon,
and bats soared above the faint smoke.
She saw me,
and stopped.

She came to me, smiled,
gave me one of her beads
and went back into her dance.
And I woke up.

“Hmm, really a story,” Ekundayo yawned,
and continued drinking with the other men.

I gently cleaned the tears
before they dropped from my eyelids,
and drank my remaining palm wine.

Only if they knew
she was my wife.