“In This Place” by Ifeanyi Collins Igbokwe

In this place
Where our wealth
Was once traded for concoctions
Where the five – fold diseases
Once turned our children to Kosama
Where our redemption and survival
Were once neck laced around Shaman

In this place
Where we were once slaughtered
In the dirty name of sacrifice
Where our skilled and wealthy kins
Once fell prey to the sorcerers
Where Slessor once battled against infanticide
Where we were once blinded folded
By destructive superstitious tradition
And the gods lied in geometric progression

In this same place
Stands a solid white statue of the virgin
A clean cassock
And a rusty – red cedar cross clinging
To the deluxe dome of our
Fairly facile and feisty freedom.