"5 — tan-renga" by Christina Chin & Uchechukwu Onyedikam

grandpa's riverboat comes to a halt— coconut plantation the welcome drums at Ọmambala

--

fragrant blossoms the eternal-rose you gave never fades --

our slow dance

quickens to a tango

the courting couples

elegantly cruise

past us

--

carved

on the tree bark

our names

deeper in foreign

native accent

--

nwantiti

active love potion—

pure

white swans

entwine in hearts

Christina Chin is a painter and haiku poet from Malaysia. She is a four-time recipient of top 100 in the mDAC Summit Contests, exhibited at the Palo Alto Art Center, California. 1st prize winner of the 34th Annual Cherry Blossom Sakura Festival 2020 Haiku Contest. 1st prize winner in the 8th Setouchi Matsuyama 2019 Photohaiku Contest. She has been published in numerous journals, multilingual journals, and anthologies, including Japan's prestigious monthly Haikukai Magazine.

Uchechukwu Onyedikam is a Nigerian creative artist based in Lagos, Nigeria. His poems have appeared in Amsterdam Quarterly, Brittle Paper, Poetic Africa, Hood Communists, The Hooghly Review, and in print anthologies. Christina Chin and he have co-published Pouring Light on the Hills (2022)