Dolapo Demuren

Pamenar Press
Aug 31
2 min read

Dolapo Demuren is a Nigerian-American writer from the Washington D.C. area. He received his B.A. in Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins University, M.F.A. from Columbia University, and Ed.D from the University of Southern California. His honors include a Pushcart Prize nomination, fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation and The Academy for Teachers, and scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. His poems and other writings are featured in the Adroit Journal, On the Seawall, Frogpond Journal, Prelude Magazine, and Small Orange Journal. He teaches creative writing at the University of Maryland College Park, where he is the associate director of the Jiménez-Porter Writers’ House and a lecturer for the College of Arts and Humanities.

American Dream Sonnet Where Two Fathers Live in My Head Like Music

1 Yes, I carried toy airplanes in my chest / pockets. Yes, there were airplanes in my father’s hands: four / or ve, at a time. / Yes, as a child I searched our home for sounds that only came from the sky. / The calendar unfolds a play. Yellow pear trees / and money trees lose their heads by the middle

2 of autumn. Yes, another Whitman has lived in our heads rent free. Yes, he accepted the title of prophet, and instead rinses honeybeans, yes we let him in– he studied the oorboards in our sunny bedrooms, saw his letters under the shadow of my father’s face, who bought land to one day / give the home to his children’s children. Just up the road,

3 my mother was waiting in the living room– this was ages ago, almost another world. / Just like how dream in another time meant music. / The warmth of his hands, the smile knit upon him / after he would give new englanders in the neighborhood money, / and young boys run in the hallways at school. Kiss their mothers without words.

4 Yellow warblers toy behind the last half of the maple’s leaves. / I lose weight in Brooklyn. I lose my father. In the second / to last dream, my father studies the oorboards. My father reaches out to himself in the mirror.