Zaynab Bobi

Shell

a body is a shrine of memories   

                    stringing on a broken violin,

                                         bowing with day, night, & grief—

this is your new body (the story i was told).

grandfather said the brain is a song

that plays childhood with mama's beads,

                                   but

     how will a five year old dance to it?

the day you took the body as memory           & brain as song,

you limp in (3) stages; shell, razor, meal—cemetery.

Bio

Zaynab Bobi, Frontier I, is a Nigerian poet, digital artist, and photographer from Bobi. She is a finalist of the voice of peace anthology, a member of Hilltop Creative Art Abuja, Poetry Club Udus, Frontier Collective, and a Medical Laboratory Science student of Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto. Her poems are published and forthcoming in Kalahari Review, Sledgehammer Lit, PraxisMag, Paddler Press, WRR, Overhead Literary Magazine, Melbourne Culture Corner, Ice Floe Press, Lunaris Review, Rigorous Magazine, The Shallow Tales Review, and more. She tweets @ZainabBobi.