Love in Traffic

There was a collision of eyes;

Within the traffic of third mainland bridge.

In the festering heat and the clap of a fan with hot air.

Amidst the silent wails of weary people mixed with

Loud complaints of buttocks tucked for too long.

The swish of cotton against wool-

Begs the question of wool in heat enough to bake a cake.

Across the sighs of twenty passengers

And the cries of forty feet.

I fell in love with a stranger

Unlike the movies,

Nothing went still and I kept breathing

My heart started no race against time.

My stoic face of frustration

Slowly transformed into a foreign thing

Adjusting itself around my mouth

With the same difficulty of a fat woman in a plastic chair.

Within the traffic of Third Mainland

And the orchestra of horns.

He smiled back. 

Nkem Oyaghire