Eve Of A Market Day Poem by Tony Adah

Aunty Berong Igang
Died on the eve of
A market day.
Her corpse was placed
On a fixed trolley
That couldn't move
A sure deed to show
How famous the spinster was.

On the third day when I
Expected her to rise
As the bible said
She laid there still
Sniffed cotton wool
In her narrow nostrils
I watched men igniting
Canons that boomed out
With echoes over hills and valleys.

This arena was a hodge podge
Of singing and dancing
Wailing and mopping of tears
Eating and drinking
Young apprentice folks
In a queue learning the gun.

In an old derelict hut and
On its half walls circles were drawn
Leaving a dot at the centre
Here I was given a dane gun
Bequeathed by my grandpa
For our generation
And I got the centre
Of the circle
As I was handed the gun,
A nascent marksman
Quaking with fear like
The women who shouted last night
At the apparition
Of the spinster's ghost.