August 2nd, 2020
Delicate
Some porcelain is missing from my cheek,
a hole you study while you think I sleep.
In light of day it bothers you I’m weak.
In darkness you find penetrable deep.
August 2nd, 2020
Some porcelain is missing from my cheek,
a hole you study while you think I sleep.
In light of day it bothers you I’m weak.
In darkness you find penetrable deep.
Very soon, I will embrace my wife again as a farmer embraces the rainy season, or, like a groom embraces his new bride. I will be drenched in water. A sorrow–hidden moment it will be, just like January 1st, 2005. That was the last day I saw her heavy dimples and swollen abdomen.
Continue reading “Riverbed Reunion by Abiodun Usman”When we started I thought
—so that’s the way light tastes.
I called light—future.
Now I feel its loss in my teeth, jaw, hands.
My hair still smells like your hair.
I can’t think of my own body
without thinking of yours,
without thinking of swimming pools lit
by waves of lightning so close I can taste
their ozone and how there was a time when that taste was hope.
How many dawns did I greet hoping
you had not stopped breathing in your sleep
or whatever we should call the blear
between high and not high?
My love for you kept me awake—
what little I knew then—
watching over you, thinking that
if you died I would want to die too.
I tried to love you like this: all or nothing.
How many times did I shake you back to me? Do you remember
what I said? I said
here is my only life—take it.
I mean if you’re breathing, stay with me.
I mean if you’re not
stay with me.
If your hand is in my hair, leave it.
If you are this hurt,
let it hurt. I can take it. Don’t ever
be done with me.
The sweetest thing
Sweetest thing
that could happen
this day
a real reason to cry
Its All Greek to me
For B. D. M.
“The embrace of men”
I say
and you pirouette
behind the cash register
a new found bond at work
Menstrual Blood
Jesus bled menstrual blood from
the wound that gave birth.
Out of his side, a gaping vulnerability,
inviting a finger, a mouth,
a community baptised.
Continue reading “Menstrual Blood by Gavin D’Costa”