In their impotent lot

In their impotent lot’…

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In their impotent lot
They sit with plagued smiles before borrowed tables
At this place of many voices.
The women sellers sit with heads sprinkled with untimely white hairs

Gazing tearfully at their decaying vegetables
And flies that dance around the lifeless chunks of meat & fish of their fellows-in-trade.
The male sellers with arms veined lavishly
Sit with outdated newspapers
lifting their brows at the sight of large naira figures on the pages.

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Sandwiched between the women & men
Are dirty children-our children who should sit at citadels
Yet they saunter about the market place with rusty voices
And stainless basins filled with species of petty wares.
Though festooned by mud and debris
Though unkempt like the village boy’s hair
This market place is the bakery that gives these citizens their daily bread.

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Daily they assemble with infirmed wares
afflicted by days of unfulfilled lust for buyers.
In loud and silent conversations,
They undress the plight of their ailing families and their unchanging lot.

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Through days of wetness and dryness
And through bright days charcoaled by unbidden events
These mothers and fathers of our brothers
Continue to sit daily with plagued smiles
Counting the days of perhaps, an impotent future.