Olatunde Osinaike ​
​

Allura Red

Pasadena was the prettiest word,
especially for a town the president

would seldom praise as violent. So
this is what we agreed to do.

Take a day and return with some idea
more inline with beauty. Compote, shiraz,

pop rocks. They all but argued giving that
title now to you. And you’ll be happy

to find we fell for it: the night yews,
we figured for hawthorns, tallied

in the cowl as we flashed toward
our park in one tow zone. I should so wish

to stay the way you do, to not go
so quickly. Beloved, you have to believe

when I say, I pulled off with no plan
for the blades’ sway, waving their own

​sort of bye. It was then there was conclusion.
A thousand skins you would touch.

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Olatunde Osinaike is a Nigerian-American poet, essayist, and software developer. Selected as the 2024 Georgia Author of the Year in Poetry, his first collection, Tender Headed (Akashic Books, 2023), was named a winner of the National Poetry Series and shortlisted for the Society of Midland Authors Award in Poetry and Nossrat Yassini Poetry Prize. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Literary Hub, The Slowdown, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Best New Poets, 20.35 Africa, New Poetry from the Midwest, Obsidian, Wildness, and elsewhere. Originally from the West Side of Chicago, he now lives in Atlanta with his wife and would like to thank you.