Today’s Sermon

By Fadairo Tesleem

Imaam said to me–if you die, the soil would forbid touching your body

& termites dare not dine on your flesh. Sounds like a good news.

 

So I smiled / nodded in affirmation/ & said–  Have you not known, O Imaam !

 

That termites mustn’t come near bodies of God’s men

Have you not known?!

 

He laughed/ not at me but my ignorance/ & proceeded —

/tell me of a land that houses criminals/ no land touches the stinking

body of a sinner/ & no termite eats the forbidden flesh of a man

 

beneath Allah’s angry canopy.

 

I stopped him & said– O Imaam !

my name is Tasleem / not of submission/

Not of willing oneself to anyone’s orders_/ but peace.

 

I told him my name is Tesleem_ May peace be with me

on the day I vacate this space, till the /promised hour of questioning/

& till forever.

 

Fadairo Tesleem is a poetry coach, teacher and literary critic from Osun state, Nigeria. His works are forthcoming in “Fieryscribe Review Magazine”, “Pangolin Review” & “QT literary Magazine”.