Adam in Orange

On the afternoon of the twenty first of September 2001 a commuter, crossing Tower Bridge noticed something orange floating in the Thames. On closer inspection the object was discovered to be the torso of a young Nigerian boy aged between six or seven.
The police named him Adam and an autopsy found the remnants of a bean in his stomach. The bean, which originated from West Africa, paralyses its victims, while leaving them fully conscious. After several years of investigation, by the British police, including a journey to Nigeria , nobody has been charged with the ritual murder of Adam. To date, there are no official Nigerian Police records of any investigation into the murder of Adam or the many thousands of Nigerian children that disappear every year.


Adam in Orange

Through freezing mud water
I behold
My brother, my father, my son
A stubbed torso winks back
The story of an ill night
In the shape of the slaughter
Of an African child.

They stand over you.
You peer up, your trusting eyes wide with
The promise of sweets and football
They call your name. Lost
Not Adam.
You drop your pail
As leather skinned palms pull you
From a sandy castle
In a slum
Into the stomach of a steel bird
That screams as it carries you sky bound
Up and up
And down and down
To the grey incubus
In the fist of a hoary asphalt jungle
Immaterial child say goodbye to the indigo star lit skies
And look down
There- soft red carpeted stairs on stiff bear feet
There- goes a matchstick boy.

Filled with the promises of rainbow splashed sweets
Who stares up at a cartoon ceiling?
Where a supple drum murmurs from another soul’s arid skin
Rhythmic soft, amber, naked waxed lights
Hushed voices. There is something static in the air.
Mouths that show smiles as clean as bone
Cherry eyes that simmer your soul away
Adam? Did they tell you to always respect your elders?
“The sweets?”
Straw tongues rasp “Hush Hush, eat this”
Small brown bean.
Bang!
CAN’T MOVE
Your eyes are paralysed
But they scream
Tonight they will aputate your life
I see a crimson terror
pumping through your tiny heart,
H-E-L-P leaps from plush black velvet eyes
“Adam, take my hand hold it. Let me-
-too late”
Looming shadows approach.
The air screams
Horror, horror, horror,
Yours eyes leak the last of your life
Balmy saline down your frozen cheeks
Razor edged blade coldly smiles
And kisses you soft sweet neck
Gushing streaks of crimson and red
To a steady pump
To none
To
Adam
Headless, Limbless, stumped
A face?A name?
A soul
Floating orange on grey
One day, my son
I will reach deep into limbo
So deep
And take your hand and fold it in mine
As warm as a heart beat
As fragile as glass.