Listen, I have nothing to say to the wren
that ruffles its feathers in my heart.
I do not swear my loyalty to men, to
presidents who walk on shards of skeletons
with a scroll of blood in their mouth.
Trust me, I owe no god my soul.
I have given all I can to the old bell
on that dusty road where tourists
walk daily to contemplate the strangeness
of God. I have trimmed my nails.
I have washed the blood of the animals
off my fingers. I took the last train
to Babel. I sold my language for two nickels.
I spoke in hums. I count on the birds
to lead me to the prairie where butterflies
build their dreams around the kindness of men.
I do not have hatred for the world. No.
I have disgust for the politics of men.
I know betrayal. But I know love, too.
I am a simple man with a simple mind.
The world looks not into my eyes,
but into my hands. They want to see the blood
before they touch the scar. People touch me,
& are shocked by their own sadness.
I have nothing to give the world except
for my heart. Its tired loop, tiny lullabies.
Its birds, the ballads of their wings. I can’t speak Ț
to the unlit lighthouse at the other end
of the river. Can’t speak to the shadow of the boy
who walks at the knife-edge of the greenfield.
I am held down by the metaphor. Listen,
I can’t tell you anything that would save your
life. I, too, am negotiating my own salvation.
What if I tell you not all my gods leave
their temples drunk?
What if I told you that I took my gods to a crossroad
& willed them to chorus
to the music of my own doubts?
I am not a simple man. I have the logic of fireflies.
See, I have nothing to say to the dove
perched on the hill of my heart.
I, too, am a child lost in a forest full of tired gods.

after Akpa Arinzechukwu’s Sentencing

I walk on the edge of the river.
At the end of the walk, I am still empty.

I send a voicemail to my lover,
& my voice on the phone is a flower

wilting. I carve prayers outside my heart.
In church, I pretend to see God.

I write the psalms in my diary
just to tear them out for spilling into my dreams.

All my lovers look at me
& see the knives of their own choice.

They touch my face & it is not flesh they feel
but the dust of me rising to the fore.

At the mirror, I mouth, you’re enough you’re enough
& that night, I look at my palms

Say, you too have borne the weight of bearing the seeds.
‍I can’t tell if my father is proud of me

but I know his love is a wet coal.
I’d burn my sleep to keep him warm.

I can’t. I’m not that good of a son.
I take the jacket off his back in my poems.

In my poems, I leave him stranded at sea.
He is never in a temple; never in a tent.

I know love only by its sheen
on the dull edge of a blade.

All love & no sacrifice.
All love & a scar in place of a son.

I bought a plant on sale,
& slept through its wither.

I have held the soft spine of a rosary,
Mouthed Hail Marys— yet the ache

in my bones stays awake. Lord, I’m not
a good lamb. I wandered away from the flock

only to bleat into a storm. At the end,
I swallowed my song. In my bones,

all the music flames alive. In my bones, a dirge.
In bed, I told Lucia I don’t know what

prayer means, when I meant to say I have given
up on the ritual of performance.

I started a crusade. I walked inside a fog
that whispered my grandmother’s name.

I took my hands to an old temple
& forgot to touch God with them.

I stand inside a song that is not a song.
I carried my tears around like little pellets.

I walked barefoot through my ache.
I walked on the edge of a river,

not to understand its abundance
but to listen to the whimper of my solitude.

I’m a good man. I’m a good man.
I sat by the water & eulogized my emptiness.

‍

Notes:

“They touch my face & it is not flesh they feel/ but the dust of me rising to the fore” is inspired by Akpa’s “They look at me, & it is not them who hurt”

“All my lovers look at me/ & see the knives of their own choice.” is inspired by Akpa’s “I smile, & the people who love me/ are disappointed.”

As the smoke rose through the hut,
out into the sky where God himself dreams of desire,
we lay there, my lover & I.
We watched the smoke spread into the evening light.
Every dusk, a bird sits on the verandah & sings the song of want.
I know this because I have spent my nights
staying up to watch the stars—to remind myself how blessed
I am to be here, amongst God’s artifacts,
to be here close to my lover’s body.
I sing silent—my tongue a trumpet,
inside it a tune fleshed out of thirst.
One morning, I found a wounded bird on my porch
& I whispered into myself the whole day this is not a premonition.
‍Lord, teach me how to see the fragility in tenderness.
Teach me to accept the innocence of wings;
even desire—the flower that sprouts in my ribs
each time my lover says my name.
Teach me to see paradise where the world sees pebbles.
At night, I place my right hand on my heart
just to remind myself to be here, in this temple that’s love, with my lover.
I have been speaking about love—
yet, each word comes out in a language that is not mine.
I have been speaking about désire—
yet, everywhere I turn, the world opens a mirror of riddles.
Lonely, I sometimes sit by a stream. I gift it my solitude.
I listen to the silent ripples of water. I say that too is love,
that too confirms my life—a portrait of the self.
As the smoke rose, the hut was warm,
& my lover’s body against mine was a hymn.
I still hear it now, the hymn, the birds, our cats on the
other end of the hut chasing after butterflies.
I hear it now, my body inside my lover’s —
a prayer and a tongue on which it melts.