My Love Poem by Selorm Agbleze

My love is a flower
A tender rose in a thick wall of thorny hedge
At my side of the hedge
Three huge thorns slide across of reach
I am not afraid of losing my fingers
I am only afraid of bruising my love
Tender she is, a rose among thorns

For six yam festivals I struck against the thorns
So tall the hedge, so tick the thorns
So ever blunt the knife life had given
So I took a run around my world
To reach the other side of the hedge
Then came him from the city college
From the other side of the hedge where thorns never grow
He plucked my flower
He picked my love
I am not in much pain
My love is happy as far as she can feign

Yesterday I called my love
When the day was old but half
And we both pretended;
I have not heard of her dowry paid
And she is still the tender blooming rose
Behind the three thorns
In the thick wall of thorny hedge