Kashumu.
One, two, three,
I can count his ribs that protrude like thick veins on his bony flesh;
His collarbone, a parched pit sunken like a tree with hollows.

Shrunken skin, a boy in the body of an old man;
His pale brown eyes are a telltale sign of malnutrition.
Garri is his favourite food,
Not because he has tasted better meals,
But it is better than an empty stomach.

‘When will the poor breathe?’ He asks as he gulps down the unflavoured garri he had left to swell.

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Omidan.
Baba Olowo lives in a mansion beside her parents’ shack.
Daydreaming about living in a gated house is her favourite pastime.
But wealth always misses the path to her home.
It never paid a short visit. Not once.

Her school uniform is a garment of holes and mismatched patches.
She has just been sent home for the tenth time in a term.
Her parents will beg the headmaster as usual,
Because five thousand and fifty naira is a luxury they can’t afford.

‘When will the poor breathe?’ She asks as she watches the retreating backside of Baba Olowo’s Benz.

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Talaka.
Since he was a baby, poverty has never taken a break from his mother’s hut.
It flaunts its chronic colours at all times,
Flogging his six siblings and him with endless hunger and tattered clothes,
And taunting them with one illness after another.

He’s the first child,
So he has to fend for his family.
He never knew his father.
Mother said he killed himself because of huge debts.

‘When will the poor breathe?’ He asks as he picks through the dumpsite beside the canal.