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after Martin Carter
They like talking in the dark.
They are just voices. With the lamp off
his voice is air, warm, passing
over her ear, and the ear is catching it.
They have no obvious bodies,
no histories to set alight. They are,
both of them, black, and the breath
of the universe. They are a part
of the darkness, the emptiness in
the unbelievable, in the shadowness
of the night. And they are talking
about how they should go to Accra
in August, because Europe is nice
but gets boring. And one voice is
talking about how its body
needs heat – how, in the heat
that body remembers
that it has a body, begins to love
that body again. And the other
voice is agreeing, though the other
voice has a body that’s from
here, that doesn’t suffer too much
in the cold, though, still,
that body is here, warming hers.
And they are as good as twins
in the womb tonight, in the unbelievable
in the shadowness.
About Victoria Adukwei Bulley
Victoria Adukwei Bulley is a British-born Ghanaian poet and writer. A former Barbican Young Poet, her work has been commissioned by the Royal Academy of Arts, in addition to being featured on BBC Radio 4. Her debut pamphlet, Girl B, is edited by Kwame Dawes and forms part of the New-Generation African Poets series 2017. She is currently directing Mother Tongues, a forthcoming film, poetry and translation series supported by the Arts Council and Autograph ABP.
