Poem: “Those Lucky Few” by Femi Fatoba

Those Lucky Few

I am one of those lucky few
Who have no sense of smell:

When the boss demands
And sleeps with my wife
Let her come home for a bath
And put on her best clothes,
A promotion party does not smell;

When the Honourable Minister lures my daughter
And silences me with a contract award
It is a father’s reward
And it does not smell;

When I take my mother to the medicineman
For the money ritual
How do you expect me to remember
The smell of an umbilical cord
Severed years ago

Or that of the blood that binds
When I use my brother’s skull
For AWURE* soap?

I do not smell
Little children’s belch of hunger
When I snatch food from them To feed my dog;

I am one of those lucky few
Who have lost the sense of smell.

— Femi Fatoba

*AWURE: a good-luck charm

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