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The affair of wee mortals
With our planet has gone awry again;
Crabby like the acrid taste of long kept palm wine.
We mask our depredation with mendacious diplomacy.
Hence this social distance between us and Earth.

Suddenly the world is shut.
And we are the incarcerated Homo sapiens
Of modern day cave men.

Empty park benches in empty parks;
Empty dusty pews in empty cathedrals;
Empty classrooms in empty citadels of learning;
Empty liquid soap and sanitizer cans everywhere;
Used face-masks litter the street corners.

The greatest nations are on their knees;
People are falling like flies in everywhere else.
This monstrous virus is having a field day.


What do we really know if not only of today?
Is the past not isolated only in our memories?
Tomorrow might as well never come.

But in the meantime,
My little children, bored-to-tears
Of staying indefinitely indoors, run to me,
“Daddy please take us biking and skating!”
My beautiful wife talks of travelling
From the coasts of Warri to Ikot-Ekpene
For the funeral rites of her late father.

I tell them, “Hush!”
Listen to the news. It’s spreading.
See what has become of us… the virus.

Hush again!
A well-known chief has kicked a bucket in my neighbourhood.
His mansion has been evacuated
And all the occupants isolated.