A Poem

 By Mathias Orhero

Juliette's French accent excites my ears

It is like music, the fusion of ça va with anglo-saxon words

When she said bon matin, light arrested the night

And the pigeon on my window did a mating dance

My ça va bien was reported in an Urhobo tongue

Juliette spoke little English,

I spoke only enough French to avoid death

But our accented tongues did more than talking

And that is all the communication we needed.

                                               

Mathias Orhero is a PhD candidate at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He is a published scholar with interests in minority writing, Niger Delta literature, Black Canadian literature, and poetry. He sometimes writes poetry and spends most of the day staring at a laptop screen.