Escape Route

Abena Essah

Mile End, 23rd December 1686

My Kwabena’s lips are warm

his back against the brick

gold glow pulsing from the Ball

outlines the full of his bottom lip

muffled music, black folk and

swing dancing keep us company

hand tracing his neck

like that day thigh to thigh in March

teaching his hands to stretch to my native God

Olodumare; Ashe flows endless within us

our bodies, formless and fluid

limbs hot, our beards meshing

Kwabena recalled his Maame lifting and

pounding bankye and brodeɛ

fufuo steaming with fish and soup

his hands scouping mouthful after mouthful.

Now he pulls at my tongue with his teeth sharp

I can tell when he remembers, a hunger to his pace;

the purpling of his skin, the pounding

siblings screaming at sea, thrown overboard.

Now, I wrap my arms around the future of him

‘The whole of London will be looking for you Tobi’

he is whispering, like that first day at the piers

his hand, grabbing my leg in the shadow

of the street corner; my arms are hauling

crates of Woodfine’s food,

brass choking my throat.

Kwabena had known them once

the routes I dragged my body along

so he never looked away.

Here cheek to cheek we know,

we cannot give each other our Mother’s back

our tongues do not fold the same syllables

but we can name each other

Goude to Oluwuatobi

Unnamed to Akan

Woodfine cannot find us here

© Abena Essah 2021. ‘Escape Route’ was commissioned by Spread the Word, Ink Sweat & Tears and the University of Glasgow and was published with other creative work inspired by research into London’s freedom seekers in F. Al-Amoudi and K. Birch, eds., Runaways London: For the enslaved freedom-seekers of the 17th and 18th centuries (London, 2021), pp. 49–50.