by Brian Gyamfi
I had turned 25, had arrived in Madina,
where I could not utter a logical phrase
save a translation of hello through clotted breath.
I spoke to a stranger. I couldn’t say much
but I could smoke. The stranger didn’t eat much
and she didn’t dance
and she didn’t remove her plastered shoes
and her neck wasn’t a pipe screwed on by smoke
her knees weren’t scraped with dust either,
I cannot say the same about her fingers.
In the evening, the trees turned to ice
and I stayed at the restaurant
watching the cars
and I didn’t eat what I was given,
banana, wine, something that was once alive in the sea.
I can’t remember what was said
or why the stranger yawned. But as I sit on the balcony
I wonder how I say to the breeze
I’m overwhelmed by its movement.
Finalist, the Poetry International Prize 2022
BRIAN GYAMFI is a Ghanaian American writer from Arlington, Texas. Much of his work explores collective identity, the convergence of Western religion and African spirituality, and the impact of the ecosystem on traditional norms, politics, and religion in pre-and post-colonial African history. He was named a Benjamin Gilman Scholar in 2018 and a McNair Scholar in 2019. In 2020 Gyamfi received the University of Texas at Austin’s Student Writing Flag Award, and in 2022 he was awarded the Hopwood Graduate Poetry Award, the Michael R. Gutterman Award, the Helen S. and John Wagner Prize, and a finalist for the Oxford Poetry Prize and the Poetry International Prize. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from UT Austin and is currently a Rackham Merit Scholar at the University of Michigan, where he teaches academic composition and creative writing.