Afraid of getting bloodon the furniture, Yusefput my finger in his mouth.We were seven and nine yearsclueless of first aid treatments.He traced the cut with histongue. There was so muchwater I thought I must bedrowning. Earlier that daywe were suspendedfrom school so, we foldedpaper into airplanes and boats.When Yusef asked whatI was doing with the knife,I said I was making art.Then I was not, at the sightof the ballooned white tissuebefore my finger was overranwith blood. Yusef pinned meto the wall before lowering my fingerinto the tank of the kerosenelamp. He wrapped the danglinghalf of my finger to its rootwith a rag from his mother’ssewing kit. The whole afternoonI thought about my sister’sdolls lying in their boxes andwhat their still bodies can teachabout dying. I was not a kidwho paid attention until Yuseflost a tooth to an infection.I was scared the opening in his mouthwas a faucet and that he would alwaystry to drown me. So, I pushed him offthe playground into the puddle. I pushedhim down until he stayed there.
Dolls
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“Dolls” from 2000 Blacks by Ajibola Tolase © 2024. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.
Ajibola Tolase is a Nigerian poet and essayist. He is the author of 2000 Blacks, winner of the 2024 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. He graduated from the creative writing MFA program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His chapbook, Koola Lobitos was published as a part of the New Generation African Poets Series edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani in 2021. His writing has appeared in LitHub, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, Poetry, and elsewhere. He has received a creative writing grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation. He received fellowships from Colgate University and Stanford University.
"'Imagine / the land without the conflicts,' writes Ajibola Tolase in his blazing debut, 2000 Blacks. From Nigeria to America, Tolase explores the surrealness that arises from living in repressive spaces. Yet despite the violence embedded in systems of power, ‘the native word for burn is the same as dance.’ This is a necessary poetry that leaves no quarter unsinged, a revelation in its willingness to dwell in the unimaginable."
—Quan Barry, author of Auction
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