Cyborgs on the Seme Border

Prosper Ifeanyi

(Nigeria)

Their ribs stood out, with prongs of bird-like
feet and insular palms. We made ourselves
a glass of violin so we could see what the ruin
looked like in the chaos of it all. At Seme Border
lives are sprawled like peas from a pod. A metal
is hanging over a man’s shoulder blade, and the
traffic lights are blinking awkwardly— on the
border, within Benin, a thirty minutes drive from
Badagry, the smell of gasoline and burnt pipeline
fills the air. The cyborgs chased the inhabitants
into bunkers and mud-capped mountains. Their
body rusty-leaved and latched in the naked air.
While trying to escape, we lodged our feet to
the dog-nose wetness of an electrocuting pool.
Brothers shocked to stiffness. Bodies pimpling
under the harsh and tinder cold at the pre-op.
A woman trying to sneak substandard goods
through the border loses an ear to the lasers
shot by the cyborgs— our bodies, swarming with
imaginary pins and flying clouds. A meadow
unspreads somewhere by the sea; the heart of
the sun severed into bits of spindly light rays.
Little by little, even the masquerading ants begin
sneaking granules of foods through the border.

Prosper Ifeanyi

is a

Guest Contributor for Panorama.

Prosper C. Ìféányí writes from Nigeria. His works have recently appeared/is forthcoming in South Dakota Review, Panorama, Magma Poetry, Black Warrior Review, New Delta Review, Salt Hill, The Westchester Review, The Offing, Variant Literature, New Note Poetry Anthology, and elsewhere. His debut micro-chapbook, Sermon (Ghost City Press), appears in 2023. He has a B.A in English and Literary Studies from Delta State University.

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