portrait of flowers permeating the fingers of bloom
i imagine the moonwalking of dead leaves asthe descent of cherubim. it’s been a fortnight
since the last plague—the wreckage of a body
in the mouth of a river bird. a flood of sunlight
pours in through the windowsill/ perforates
my ribs/ spills on the carpet. tell me, little bird,
have i become too transparent for flesh/
for light/ for breath?/ grandma kneels in
our flower garden, picking tiger lilies like
coffin nails, & inserting them into a window vase,
dirt smeared over her caftan. she replaces
the lilies on saturdays after they sag. a kind of
ritual, i presume. forgive my misgivings, everything
i touch withers. plucked a rose once, & it began
to wilt, undressing itself of its petals. the same way
i held my mother’s face in the soft of my palm,
& she melted into a photograph— liquid memories
trapped in colours. all i’m saying is:
i fear my joy will blur if i touch with such
tenderness. this is to say, i am a rose
succumbing to the seduction of winter.
what is the tapestry of ruin if not flowers
permeating the fingers of bloom?
let this cup pass over me
in my country/ there are no homeless bullets/no homily to harvest from our saviour’s lips/
What is the physics of transfiguration/ that
grief alters its countenance/ disguises as
a flowering in my bones?/ what, then?/
you cleave open a boy, but find rotten
metaphors & burning cities/ who said a boy
should soldier through a constellation of embers
& sprout dandelions for sores?/ truth is:
we bury the truth beneath our tongues/
a scavenger flutters behind my rib/ feasts
on the ventricles of my faux joy/ an eclipse blossoms
in the soft of my mouth/ i have come to think
bullets are heathens/ godless creatures/ if not/
why don’t they bow when i say peace, be still?/
i drown in the lake of my misgivings till i am
the limbs of a scream/ my father thinks i will set
his house ablaze each time i say i am no stranger
to darkness and wildfire/ therefore i am a taboo/
a bad omen/ an ọgbanje. i want to hold
an axe to my ark like a monstrance/ to
tear down the fabrics of this chapel/ or fetch
poetry from the strands of my lover’s brow/
faith has no room in my teeth/ my body/
a calligraphy of impossibilities/
lord/ if thou wilt/ let this cup pass over me/
Mgbabor Emmanuel Chukwudalu, Frontier XIII, is a Nigerian poet and storyteller. He came 1st Runner-up in the POETICALLY-WRITTEN PROSE (2021) organized by PIN Initiative, and as well a winner of the MY SHUZIA POETRY COMPETITION (2021). His works have been published and forthcoming in various magazines and journals, including: The Shallow Tales Review, My shuzia magazine, Evokelit, Walled City Journal, Wine Cellar Press mag, The African Writers review, amongst others. Currently, he reads poetry for LERIMS magazine. He tweets @literati22.
Art Banner: Landscape/ Glitch/ Night Flowers a visual poem by Robert Frede Kenter. Twitter: @frede_kenter, Insta: r.f.k.vispocityshuffle, icefloe22
IceFloe Press 