Escape from Port Harcourt

Poetry by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

Growing up In Port Harcourt
was like swimming in the River Niger
without touching its water;
though my body was making sidestroke
and backstroke,
violent symptoms of living,
and occasional sliding movements,
hands flailing, legs flapping,
as though the riverbed was a stone heap,
upon which the water drips and slips out,
I could not get wet.
The wave was hot; the …