Polythene Wrapper

Polythene Wrapper

By George Amadi

Makeshift kiosks, bed-rooms to migrant night-guards,

Neighbourhood stores by day catering to needy infants

Left to their own devices by silly, working-class parents,

Veritable dispensers of garbage indeed, become have.

Dragged along, as it were, by their aunties or proxies,

Kindergarten pupils, in loud-coloured uniforms clad,

Are with sweets, biscuits, cheese-balls, wafers stuffed;

Each delicacy on sale in a polythene wrapper clothed.

Everywhere you look on my short, but unpaved, street,

Your eyes cannot but be assailed by irritating garbage

Consisting, in the main, of discarded thermoplastic stuff 

Which fast-foods joints, these days, for packaging fancy.

When the weather a little wind now and then, picks up,

A dust-storm, before you know it, from nowhere kicks in;

Needless to say, flying plastic wrappers then, gutters clog,

An offensive odour, mosquitoes as well, our homes bug.

Lagos, Aug. 26, 2014