The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: local remdies by Chiagoziem Jideofor

---

lesser crops

we’ve been told of old walls still standing,
of forms we assumed, as rebels, dreamers

like it’s some sin
waking from dreams, slowly at first, then aching.

in shame, there are things best kept to self,
secrets locked in our bones all these years,

the shape and texture of that on which we’ve fed
—meanings behind our parables of sustenance.

there is a yam crop served only to kings,
tended to with bent knees and rounded hoes,

rocking a ceremonial headgear
and with a hero’s face. yet it ran scarce

at the very point of need, leaving space
for the woman’s crop, like cassava, a thing less revered.

war being one of the world’s great ironies,
instances where quicker math becomes the norm,

like cassava and its long list of frying and mashing and endurance,
—a lesser crop raising the stakes,



stepping up, like a benevolent daughter
salvaging the burnt parts of a blessing,

learning to make what’s scarce wholly palatable,
to create munch from abominable protein.

such daughter, a pride in how she invents and cautions us,
to eat what we eat and not divorce sanity,

breakfast of reveries dipped in fermented sauce,
steamed cassava leaves for dinner,

while the remaining bits are kept for after it’s rained hard steel.
collective pride in how we all watch the sky,

learn when to kiss fully on the lips,
when to cite the hunger at home.

---