“diversion” by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

The road spread out before me like a grey carpet
I was on course for my destination,
almost there, just a pair of traffic lights,
veering into the light wind, a bump, slowing down,
then navigating into my large compound,
where light is cast over the roofs and trees
as though the moon gave birth to quadruplets.
the manoeuvre would have been over in five minutes.

Suddenly I saw it; a police cordon,
a pile of cars inside the cordoned area,
pools of blood spilling out through cracks

rumpled clothes, brown leaves are strewn around,
two medics attending, two police officers inside,
a thousand men outside the sealed premises.
women were wailing like sirens,
men put their arms on their chests,
sighs, shaking of heads, hooked up shoulders.

I diverted the car through Lewisham,
wound around the greens and lawns of Blackheath,
lips tightening, bones cracking, knees jerking.
I could hear my head spinning, reeling,
my heart thumping for the unknown;
what would be my fate, when my daughter’s life,
before their prime diverted to a route irreversible?
how many lives would be on diversion
the same day one life is cruelly diverted?


Jonathan Chibuike Ukah is a Pushcart-nominated poet living in the United Kingdom. His poems have been featured in Unleash Lit, The Pierian, Propel Magazine, Atticus Review, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets, and elsewhere. He won the Alexander Pope Poetry Award in 2023. He was the Editor’s Choice Prize Winner of Unleash Lit in 2024. He was shortlisted for the Minds Shine Bright Poetry Prize 2024 and was the second place winner of The Streetlight Poetry Prize in 2024.