Before the tricycle died

By Majekodunmi Ebhohon

Ah! My brother,
I am sitting here, late again,
watching a tricycle man wrestle his destiny
in the middle of the road.

The poor yellow beast coughs,
sneezes, gasps,
spits out black smoke like ancestral curses.
The driver beats the engine — _gbam!_
as if it owes him money.
He whispers to it, then shouts,
then kicks it like a disobedient child.

And I sit, sweating,
watching this drama of futility;
a nation in miniature!

O my people, machines do not just die!
They give signs;
small coughs, gentle rattles,
tiny shivers that say, _“I am tired.”_
But we, proud descendants of denial,
we turn up the convenience instead.

The tricycle warned him yesterday,
but he poured prayer into the fuel tank.
This morning, it refused to start,
and he sprinkled holy water on the carburetor.
Now it lies here,
like a slain goat of progress,
blocking the road to my appointment.

Ah Nigeria!
You, too, have been coughing,
since the first stolen ballot,
since the first “temporary hardship,”
since the first power outage that became inheritance.
You, too, are that tricycle,
held together by hope, tape, and miracle.

Look!
The driver is now blowing into a plug wire,
talking to the machine like a therapist:
_“Just one more time, abeg, don’t shame me.”_
He promises to fix it tomorrow.

Tomorrow—
our national mechanic’s appointment with destiny!

My friend, I want to laugh and cry.
The sun is judging us,
the passengers are sighing,
and I am thinking,
how easy it is
to confuse resilience with madness.

If only we listened
to the small noises before the silence.

Ebhohon is a poet, media practitioner, and playwright. Author of the Black revolutionary play ‘The Great Delusion’, he writes from Benin