I’ll let my snails crawl
I’ll let my life run its course
Although I feed my snails waterleaf and watermelon
I’ll remove the restraining basket
Ill let my snails have some freedom
I’ll let myself breathe
Though I love my snails yet,
Their tender feet so clean and pace so slow
I thought they couldn’t go across the fence
I was mistaken
I’m not able to cover the sun with my palms
I’m not able to save them all
The three biggest of them, I lost to the other side of the fence
With their saliva, I traced their path
My neighbor didn’t even ask me if I was missing any snails
But how could he even
I never spoke a word to him
He never spoke a word to me
The wall separating us is built high
That’s how to live in a big city
But I know of his wife and children
Never seen them, except that I used to hear the wife scream out at her children Amara, Chukwuma
And they used to prove a handful
They left me amused and I loved their family
All the while I tended to my snails
Gathering them in a basket
As I didn’t wish to lose anyone of them again
My neighbor doted on her offspring’s
I doted on my snails
But I cry not
I am a devoted woman
And on the date of July 5th
I found the last of my snail, feet clamped on the stem of my bitter leaf tree
I picked it up and placed in my basket
That day, something pulled me in my lower belly
And my doctor confirmed to me of my pregnancy
The day I picked my snail on a bitter leaf tree
Such irony of slow movement and a bitter tree with a sweet after taste
I become a mother against all odds.