Praise Osawaru
there is something missing & I know it
(after Ernest Ogunyemi’s jealous Ghazal)
I envy every boy who has a brother’s arm to tumble into, additional feet on the field
to frolic around, playing pass & shoot while the morning star tenders them attentive glow.
when I watch a movie & see two brothers punctuating their bond with special handshakes /
fist bumps / high fives, something in my chest wails & drops from my eyes
measures the length of my face downwards. there's something missing & I know it—
an exclamation mark in this poem / a reflection that isn’t me / sideburns / sturdy hands
to unstick me from mud. & no matter how many times I scurry & seek warmth
in mother’s embrace, that hollowness lingers, gaping like a rabbit’s burrow. in an
alternate dimension, two boys of a name enjoy the coziness of earth’s fur & witness a star
abandon the night’s sky for the surface. here, I am gazing at a half moon & seeing my heart.
I envy every boy who has a brother’s arm to tumble into, additional feet on the field
to frolic around, playing pass & shoot while the morning star tenders them attentive glow.
when I watch a movie & see two brothers punctuating their bond with special handshakes /
fist bumps / high fives, something in my chest wails & drops from my eyes
measures the length of my face downwards. there's something missing & I know it—
an exclamation mark in this poem / a reflection that isn’t me / sideburns / sturdy hands
to unstick me from mud. & no matter how many times I scurry & seek warmth
in mother’s embrace, that hollowness lingers, gaping like a rabbit’s burrow. in an
alternate dimension, two boys of a name enjoy the coziness of earth’s fur & witness a star
abandon the night’s sky for the surface. here, I am gazing at a half moon & seeing my heart.
Biography
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Praise Osawaru (he/him) is a writer and poet of Bini descent. A Best of the Net nominee, his works appear or are forthcoming in Blue Marble Review, Giallo Lit, Glass Poetry, Ice Floe Press, Kalahari Review, Rising Phoenix Review, and elsewhere. He's a 2020 Jack Grapes Poetry Prize Finalist, and he was also shortlisted for the Babishai 2020 Haiku Award and the Nigerian Students Poetry Prize 2020. A Virgo and lover of the strange and speculative, he's a prose reader for Chestnut Review. Find him on Twitter: @wordsmithpraise.
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