Poetry by Gabriel Awuah Mainoo 

                                                                                          first blizzard…
                                                                                          heaves the refugee girl’s
                                                                                          teddy bear nowhere & back

 

                                                            exodus─ a cartel of
                                                            pharaoh ants smuggling cannabis leaf
                                                            over the border bar

 

                              airport
                              all the lukewarm hugs
                              we do not press with iron

 

migration blues
a foreigner’s footsteps settles
in the mortgage statement

Bio

Gabriel Awuah Mainoo is a Ghanaian creative practitioner & an author of poetry books. He won the 2021 Africa Haiku Prize, 2022 Singapore Poetry Prize, the Samira Bawumia Literature Prize (Poetry), 2021 LFP/ RML/ Library of Africa and the African Diaspora chapbook prize, the 6th Ghana Association of Writers Literary Awards for poetry & others. Mainoo’s craft can be found in FIYAH, the London Reader, Pairie Fire, Wales Haiku Journal, other side of hope, EVENT, The Woodward Review, Africa Haiku Journal & others.

Originally published December 8, 2023