In Gorgeous Display

Beautiful Boy with Garlands around His Waist 1
What Is Left of Us Is Made Broken and Shy 2
In Which I Sit with My Father on a Threshold 3
We Are No Longer at the Threshold 4
In Which I Sit with My Mother 6
Portrait of a Boy in Gorgeous Display 7
We Recognize This Space and All the Promises It Never Held 8
Nervous Wound 10
Just in Case I Don't Come Home Tonight 11
Logan Theatre 12
Hand 13
To the Manual Parts of my Upper Limbs Distal to My Wrists 14
I Prefer the Safety of These Hands 15
If I Die, What Would My Family Write as My Biography? 16
Portrait of a Boy with Hands Helpless 18
Boy Meets Boy & This Isn't about Love 19
What I Know about Beauty 21
Duplex 23
Orbit 24
The Face of Memory Glitters with Hope 25
Notes on Desire 26
Host 28
Diary Entry 29
Leaving Sad Things Behind 31
What Escape These Hands Can Tell 33
That Night 34
Self-Portrait as White Spaces 35
In the History of Belonging 36
All My Friends Are Terrible Photographers 37
At a Queer Safe Space in Lagos 38
The Emptiness Born Out of Escape 39
Biafra War Song 41
Ars Exsilii 42
Peace Lilies 44
At the Airport Terminal 45
Joy for Yet Another Night 46
Exile Leaves You at the Foot of Desire 47
A Ritual about Home We've Come to Know 48
Survival 49
I Practice to Get Hold of Myself 51
I Have Been Thinking about Worship 52
Prodigal Son 54
A Ruined Candle Wax Still Breathes Itself into Shape 55
Acknowledgments 57
About the Author 58