Once in a while we eat the shark,
once in a while they eat us back
dragging our bodies away from the beach
with trails of blood dissolving into the body
of the ocean. Once in a while they end up
in our dish as a curried mass of flesh,
once in a while we end up as menu
in their mouth and become memories
for the divers to take back home
because the ocean fails to understand
the tender pleas of drowning torsos. Once a while
ghosts of dolphins come in bodies of sharks,
once in a while we find the seashells
beside a broken femur.
Salawu Olajide lives in Nigeria. He is the author of Preface for Living Homeland published under African Poetry Book Fund series and edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani. His poems are also available at or forthcoming in Glass, Salt Hill, New Orleans Review, Agbowo, Transition, Waccamaw, Miracle Monocle among other venues.