One Day by Babatunde Fagbayibo

Babatunde Fagbayibo | November 13th, 2018 | poetry | No Comments

Poet Bio

“Before you know commotion don start
Big trouble, big argument
Big fight, big everything
Commotion dey go, commotion dey come
Fight dey start, fight dey stop
Trouble dey turn round and round”
– Fela Anikulapo & Afrika 70 (Everything Scatter)

One day
I was on a queue
at the Bosman Taxi Rank,
praying that the bus fills up
quickly before the rain starts.

As I anxiously watched
passengers trickle into the
Taxi Rank, from nowhere
pandemonium ensued,
and people fled in
different directions.

I, too, joined
them, running as fast as I could. As
I turned into a sharp corner, still
panting, I recognised the guy who was
in front of me on the queue, and
asked him why everyone was
running. He said it was probably
the police “searching for
undocumented Kwerekweres”

Still panting, I heaved a sigh of
relief, knowing that even without
the right papers, I wouldn’t
have been arrested since
I could at least confuse the
cops with my well-choreographed,
finely cultivated insurance –
an American accent.

Poet Bio

Babatunde Fagbayibo is a poet and law teacher. His poems have appeared in web and print based anthologies such as Poetry Potion, Kalahari Review, Ake Review, African Writers, Vox Poetica, Aerodrome, Nigeriatalks Lit mag, Absolute Africa, and Litnet.

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