7:15pm in Bashorun Market/Katampe Hills
By Ọbáfẹ́mi Thanni
At the heights of longing, the mind begins to invent.
A gauze of delusion wraps around pangs. Any lover
worth their hurt knows the days when cornrows worn
a certain way or hints of deodorant are enough to
swivel their neck — only to find absence smiling back.
The clouds were unburdening themselves over
Bashorun Market when I saw silhouettes of Katampe
Hills fill up the skyline in washes of brilliant lightning.
Petrichor bypassed glass and air-conditioning to lead
me to a city I long to return — where the sun parches
everything it touches. My mind closed to the Market
huddling under MTN, Celtel and Multilinks umbrellas.
I glided instead on the rain-slicked highway from
Lugbe to Katampe under the tunneled gleam of amber
streetlights and the tranquil company of hills, until
another wash of lightning stripped me of my gauze.
The grey canvas I projected unto became evening clouds
again. Absence grinned. Raindrops slowed their
windshield-wiper music and cleaned the last of
the day’s dust from unsold bouquets of ugwu leaves.
Dave Bush, Untitled, 2018, Transparency, 20" x 25".
Ọbáfẹ́mi Thanni is a poet whose works of poetry and fiction have received Pushcart Prize nominations. An alumnus of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study's Writers' Workshop, his works have appeared in the 20.35 Anthology, Lolwe, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, Wildness, Oyster River Pages, SAND, Parentheses Journal, Contemporary Verse 2 and elsewhere. He was a shortlistee for the 2023 Public Space Writing Fellowship, 2022 Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize and was honourably mentioned by the Berlin Writing Prize in 2022. He spends his time between the cities of Ibadan, Abuja and Lucille, making attempts at beauty.
Dave Bush received his MFA from the Yale School of Art. He went on to teach photography at Bard College for over a decade. Currently on hiatus from teaching, Dave lives and works on a farm in rural Pennsylvania.