Othuke Umukoro
licking flames
nothing prepares you for falling leaves
or a mob of cicadas moving next door &
turning the whole neighbourhood into a
circus
last communion, after sharing the grace,
a woman passed round her grief along with
a tray of magnifying glasses
in my sleep, when a bullet or a bleached
bone is not screaming its name down my lungs,
i open a window to a grey flutter of waxwings
after the war our neighbour rechristened her
daughter into a door between alpha & omega
i am praying, in that manageable way that
tells us boys can carry water but hope is
useless when it is only seen through the
bullet holes on your door
so in the end, after paying taxes on what
makes him whole, a boy is
left with a bicycle
freezing in the rain
Othuke is a poet & playwright from Nigeria. His demons have appeared in The Sunlight Press, Kissing Dynamite Poetry Journal, Eunoia Review, Brittle Paper & elsewhere When bored, he watches Everybody Hates Chris. He tweets @othukeumukoro19