Testimony
by Bola Opaleke
to follow your light
i grow new eyes on my hands.
i begin where your breast houses my dreams.
as a baby, mom said, i never cry because i always had a suckle in my mouth.
as a man, i always cry
to have a suckle in my mouth;
to follow your light
opening up my body without closing yours, without shattering the windshield
in-between your thighs
subtle as a cheeseburger,
stainlessly white as milk.
you said you have seen pebbles thrown into your river, i said i'll plant a new tree
therein. my heart is a country
that would never cease to burn
for you. the white smoke & the black ashes
scrambling to unmake your hummingbird nipples clot upon my glistened tongue.
i grow new eyes on my hands.
i begin where your breast houses my dreams.
as a baby, mom said, i never cry because i always had a suckle in my mouth.
as a man, i always cry
to have a suckle in my mouth;
to follow your light
opening up my body without closing yours, without shattering the windshield
in-between your thighs
subtle as a cheeseburger,
stainlessly white as milk.
you said you have seen pebbles thrown into your river, i said i'll plant a new tree
therein. my heart is a country
that would never cease to burn
for you. the white smoke & the black ashes
scrambling to unmake your hummingbird nipples clot upon my glistened tongue.
Biography
|
Bola Opaleke is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet. His poems have appeared — or are forthcoming — in, among others, Frontier Poetry, Rising Phoenix Review, Writers Resist, Rattle, Cleaver, One, The Nottingham Review, The Puritan, The Literary Review of Canada, Sierra Nevada Review, Dissident Voice, Poetry Quarterly, The Indianapolis Review, Canadian Literature, Empty Mirror, Poetry Pacific, Drunk Monkeys, Temz Review, St. Peters College Anthology (University of Saskatchewan), Pastiche Magazine, and others. He holds a degree in City Planning and lives in Winnipeg MB. Further information about his life and work can be found here.
Bola and Elisabeth have teamed up to create a chapbook together "The Shape of (Wo) man", forthcoming in 2019 from Flypaper Magazine. These poems are from that collaboration. They hope you enjoy this preview of the dynamite... <3 |
