A dirge for the colony of the unborn

The piece employs an extended biological metaphor, using the reproductive hierarchy of an insect colony to explore centralized power, political sterility, and the illusion of national unity.

In this structure, the queen becomes the state, the workers become citizens stripped of agency, and labour becomes both sustenance and submission.

The poem’s imagery highlights how systems of control can disguise themselves as natural order, until a collective awareness threatens the colony’s stability.

Happy to read your thought on this piece:

My mothers,
bring the calabash.
My fathers,
gather your wrinkled muscles.
Let us mourn this country
that labours
with many hands
but leaves
only one woman
to give birth
to the future.

Do not weep loudly—
the palace
dislikes noise.
Cry through your teeth,
the way we swallow pepper
to impress visitors.

See how the queen sits,
fat with tomorrow,
her belly
the only calendar
the nation obeys.
She lays her eggs
in the chambers
of our dreams,
and we—
poor sterile things—
bow
and chant her praises,
for what else
shall a man do
when heaven
has padlocked
his loins?

Ah, the workers…
Look
how they march,
shoulder
to shoulder,
building monuments
they shall never
inherit.
Even their sweat
is taxed;
a little tithe
for loyalty,
a little tithe
for living,
a little tithe
so the palace roof
stays golden.

And the soldiers—
may their wandering souls
find shade—
their jaws
sharpened
for wars
they did not vote.
They defend
the royal womb
as if their ghosts,
waiting
politely in the wings,
have nothing better
to do.

This nation
is a comedy
performed
as tragedy.
We know
the jokes;
we are just
too unfortunate
to laugh.

Tell me, elders,
is it not
curious
that a whole country
with millions
of hearts
must depend
on one woman’s breath
to decide
whether tomorrow
shall arrive
on time?

Is it not
miraculous
how we carry bricks
we are forbidden
to lay;
how we bury sons
we are forbidden
to mourn loudly;
how we live
like termites,
underground,
hardworking,
but allergic
to sunrise?

Yet the queen says,
“We are
one happy family.”
And we nod.
We nod
the way a dying goat
agrees
with the butcher
that life
is truly sweet.

So lift up
your gourds,
pour libation
for this land
that sterilizes
its own children
to keep
its throne
fertile.

One day,
the workers
may awaken
to a small,
impolite question:

Why must a nation
with so many wombs
be ruled
by a single birth?

And on that day,
the colony
will tremble,
not from grief,
but from laughter,
torturous enough
to end
an era.

Majekodunmi O. Ebhohon is a Nigerian poet and playwright. He is the author of ‘The Great Delusion’, winner of the ANA Prize for Drama, 2025. He writes from Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria
_+234 (0) 9139208624_
_sankara101010@gmail.com_