Shishir 2018 Poems -Stephanie Chizoba Odili

 

Fire

By Stephanie Chizoba Odili

 

A tool.
a tool that he used to touch me.
that we burned with.
our love was empty,
until we became stones.
he was jasper, I was chert.
our love had become fire.
he was cotton, I was fleece.
We burned.
Perhaps a little too much.
so today,
when we see,
when we walk
by each other;
I still smell
the fumes. Like dried,
cigarette ashes.
I still smell
the fumes of the fire
that we caused.
I still smell the flames
that disbursed.
Forever,
a reminder of that fire.
The ones
we once lit.…

 

Stephanie Chizoba Odili is a British born Nigerian novelist, poet, journalist, editor, essayist, academic writer, and activist. She obtained her first degree in Mass Communication, majoring in broadcast journalism at Covenant University. She also has a certificate in journalism from the University of Pennsylvania as well as from the Nigerian Institute of Journalism. Stephanie writes fiction and non-fiction. She enjoys performing arts and exotic food, as should all right thinking people. Stephanie is a member of the Association of Nigerian Authors and the Nigerian Union of Journalists. She is the first of four children born to Igbo parents, Osita Odili and Cynthia Odili. While her ancestral hometown is in Nteje, Anambra state, she lives in Lagos.

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