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.”