AN OUNCE OF COURAGE

Joemario Umana

Fear was the breast

             we suckled on. We were gazelles

at the mercy of the hunter's gun.

                               No, that small word,

              lived inside our throats

like a hatchling with wet wings.

Courage was an altitude of an eagle

we couldn't yearn for.

                          Yes father, we said,

even when we weren't in the wrong.

Yes father,

              the only song

                           we were allowed to sing.

But it's only for so long

you can beat an ox

                                   before its horns

               start remembering

their sharpness.

So when at the sacristy,

                                       an auxiliary,

                        after giving us

a number of white moons

to provide,

             and it didn't reach all the faithful,

and he came thundering

for us to shudder,

                                       I wasn't surprised

                              when no

           was the door

he slammed into.

                                       And even when

we were sent to the Marian square

                                            to feed our bodies

                        to the hunger of canes,

            twitching in their fists

like eager snakes,

                           like flowers blooming

                                                        in clusters,

                       no was the ground

we stayed rooted.

---

Joemario Umana, Swan XVII, is a Nigerian creative writer

and performance poet who considers himself a wildflower. A

Fellow of the SprinNG Writing Fellowship (2023), he is the

winner of the Gbemisola Adeoti Prize for Poetry (2026), co-

winner of the Folorunsho Editor Poetry Prize (2025) and the

second-place winner of the Rhonda Gail Williford Poetry

Prize (2025). His works have appeared in Prairie Schooner,

Chestnut Review, Orange Blossom Review, Frontier Poetry,

Uncanny Magazine, LOLWE, Strange Horizons, South Florida

Poetry Journal, Ubwali Lit, ONE ART Journal, Akpata

Magazine, Poetry Sango-Ota, Poetry Column–NND,

trampset, and elsewhere. He made it into the finalist pool of

the Brooklyn Poets Fellowship (2026), and was shortlisted for

the Evaristo Prize for Poetry (2026), the Stephen A. DiBiase

Poetry Prize (2026), the Kayode Aderinokun Poetry Prize, and

the Akachi Chukwuemeka Prize for Literature (2025). He

currently serves as Poetry Editor at Akpata Magazine and

Ekondo Review. When life gives him breathing space, he sees

movies, anime and roams the streets of Twitter as

@JoemarioU38615.