The Book Nook Chronicles

Poem inspired by Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

No one knows tomorrow
in this church of surging hope.
Nature is unfair to women-
she was too afraid to hope.
America had subdued her;
the cultural cues had seeped into her skin.

Keen to do the right thing and not knowing
what the right thing was in American pop culture-
beautiful dark women are invisible.

Behaving as though truth telling
had become a luxury
each word twisted
and stretched:
maybe we should laugh less
and solve our problems more?

A person made not of flesh
but of little crystals of perfection
she heard in her voice the echo of his
Obi ocha. A clean heart.