soil dampen, telephone poles tilt and great tears
pool in Demi’s wild eyes. Far off, Modupe felt
that earth wane. Modupe, Demi’s mother, her fears
honed by her child, knowing what danger wild water
could do let loose on land, left everything – her ears
seeking Demi’s distinct sobbing – the market where
she worked, utter chaos in her wake, in her vaults
over tables stacked with fruits and fried goods, the air
parting___for her, the men unable to find fault
in the thick-limbed smooth movement that was her full form.
Back at the court, Demi held on as the boys waltzed
around his pinned-down form beneath the threatening storm
One shot oh! Just one! the arena turning mulch
beneath them. Alarmed, the King yelled Fine! But shoot from
where you lay. Demi spat the soil out his mouth, hunched
till he could see one dark rim, gathered his sob back
into him and let fly the ball, his face down, crunched.
Years later Bolu would recount that shot. Its arch.
Its definite flight path, the slow rise, peak and wane
of its fall through the fishing net. Swish. Its wet thwack
on damp earth, the skies clearing, then silence. Again
Bolu said, pushing the ball to his chest. Again.
Demi, do it again. And the crowds went insane.
The rabble grew and swirled around them on the plain
of damp soil chanting Again! each time Demi drained
the ball down the net. Modupe arrived and craned
her neck but couldn’t glimpse Demi, so, a fountain
of worry, she splashed at one. What happened? Tell me!
You didn’t see? Town Crier can’t miss! He just became
the Rainman! Make it rain, baby! Yes! Shoot that three!
Ten more shots, each flawless, and they hoisted Demi
onto their shoulders, his face a map of pure glee.
Two things Modupe would never forget – that glee
when Demi became the Rainman was the second.
The first, the much darker: how Demi was conceived.
They say when Modupe was born her own mother,
who worshipped the God of vision and fiction, screamed
when she foresaw the future looks of her daughter:
the iridescent moon she’d resemble, the dream
she’d seem to men and thus the object she’d become.
Her mother had known these men her whole life, had seen
them all … from the weak and pathetic overcome
by lust, to warlords who to crush rebellion
would attack the women to daunt their men and sons.
She’d suffered such brands of violence. It had churned
her for years. Knowing her child would need protection
from a God who could wash the eyes of men and numb
their hot senses, the young mother took swift action,
stole her child to the shrine of the River Goddess
Osún, she prayed for protection, poured libation,
straddled her daughter and to show conviction lest
Osún think this a token act, split her own womb
with a knife, the blood pooling on her daughter’s chest.
Skies above Nigeria, far above the gloom,
in the heavens over Earth where the Òrìṣà,
the Yoruba Gods and Goddesses lived and loomed
Osún wailed. Voice like cyclones, she swore an oath as
Modupe’s mother bled: no mortal man would know
this child. No one will come near! She swore to the stars,
to the galaxy’s dark. Osún’s oath shook black holes.
Woe to those who would test me! To those who would try!
She made Modupe her high priestess, her go-to,
her vessel, her self on Earth, and built her a shrine
and compound by the river’s edge, where the soil soaked
with water meant Modupe could move land, unwind
the swamp into a weapon should she be provoked.
And though it became widely known that Modupe
was untouchable, it never stopped men. It stoked
their prying eyes and their naked hunger. On clear
nights they’d secretly watch her. They’d see the full moon
beaming to the rippling and pristine waters where
she bathed. The water, like liquid diamonds, cocooned
her with light. This happened years later, when she was
fully grown and legends of her beauty had bloomed
into foolish shameless lustful moans and prayers
pitched to Sàngó, the brash God of Thunder, who too
would grab his godhood, gaze at Modupe
