Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. He won the 2018 Castello di Duino Poesia Prize, Italy, and the 2022 Special ANMIG poetry prize, organized by the Centro Giovanni e Poesia di Truiggio, Italy. In 2023, he was a runner-up in the Sparks Poetry Competition, Memorial University, Canada and in the African and African-American Studies Program Contest hosted by UNL’s Institute for Ethnic Studies. He is the author of The Naming (Nebraska Press, 2025). His works have appeared in Joyland, Poetry Ireland Review, Oxford Poetry, Massachusetts Review, and The Republic.
Remembrance
I arrived Lincoln, Nebraska, with three bags:
one full of clothes, one full of food items
and one full of books and documents.
In my pocket, the language of the wind was absent.
One evening, I was on a stroll and so
followed the train tracks westward.
I met a man down the track,
who on seeing me, halted. I halted too.
He smoked the evening into elation.
You must be African, he said to me.
How did you know? I asked.
There’s something about you guys.
And I said to him in a slow calmness
and curiosity, I am Nigerian.
He smiled and hurried away.
By a coffee shop, down this city,
a man sold used clothes.
All neatly hanged on a set-up structure.
The sun spread wide its hands, covering
everything it could with its fingers.
There were no children playing on the sides.
A woman, whose eyes looked tired, braided her
daughter’s hair on the front yard.
On passing by, I gifted them a smile and a nod,
but got nothing back, just busy fingers
swimming through a forest of hair.
I lived in Lincoln long enough to
understand the gaps in every crossing.
I lived in Lincoln, and in my Lincoln
apartment’s kitchen, everything in there is Nigerian.
Every night, in my bed, I thought about the seas.
I thought about the owls, whose eyes
were dry stone, and hooted of dreams.
I thought about falcons rising from their nests.
I thought about my wife and her
lovely hair, blue scarf and smell.
I thought about my mother, and the wrinkles
appearing by the passing months on her skin.
I thought about my brothers and sister,
each one full of seals and gold fishes.
I thought about my brother’s and sister’s
children, younglings of smiles and better years.
I thought about what lies ahead of me,
it’s unsureness, wildness and stumbling
blocks. I thought about every mouth burning red
until sleep swayed me into her arms.