Peer Response Entry 2 (Week 5)

This is a response to Osa's piece:
When Father Fling

Ijaw fathers fling their babies
into the Ibadan River,
tubes in their navels,

faces cement-cold.
The ones that swim swim.
Mothers cheer
as their little Phelpses go.
Darwin's underwater show

Takes to the sky.
Yoruba fathers hurl their sons,
after puberty,
across the Atlantic, on
seven-hundred and forty seven fowls.
Everyone cheers,
no one weeps.

This scares me a little bit. I love the specificity and the images you write but the concepts are what scare me. I wonder why families throw their children into the water, but that is beside the point. What I can't get out of my head are your images. "Mothers cheer/as their little Phelpses go./ Darwin's underwater show/takes to the sky." I love how you use the reference to Michael Phelps.
I wonder though...what are the tubes? And is there a way you could talk about why people do this?
I feel like those two things would be an interesting addition to the piece.
Also, line five, where you say "the ones that swim swim," I think it might sound better if you put the second swim in its own line.