Ode To Loss
by Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí
We wrung the door to its last drop of blood.
Then we took the two buckets, each of us
Bearing one, picked up delicate wings
And flung gold leaves in the face of the sky.
It was the first day of prayer. We were young,
You and I; and in the field of our hearts,
Little lit foxes lifted sad beautiful cries.
Back from above, we stepped into the room,
The one with walls covered with the faces of all those
Who forgot to stay, who left but left behind
The charming bones of their songs. All year,
We lay in bed, waiting, simply waiting for
Our small lives to change. To what? I said--
I don’t know. Between your teeth you played the ghost
Of Rilke, the night choir grazing our bodies
With quivering-something. It is impossible now to say
That we were in love, though the foxes
In my heart ran wild when you turned the jar,
When you flirted with the single string
On the harp. Then they lay still in the field,
Waiting. Now I think they were waiting, like us,
Like the single-string music you blazed, waiting
To return to the cold underside of dream.
Then we took the two buckets, each of us
Bearing one, picked up delicate wings
And flung gold leaves in the face of the sky.
It was the first day of prayer. We were young,
You and I; and in the field of our hearts,
Little lit foxes lifted sad beautiful cries.
Back from above, we stepped into the room,
The one with walls covered with the faces of all those
Who forgot to stay, who left but left behind
The charming bones of their songs. All year,
We lay in bed, waiting, simply waiting for
Our small lives to change. To what? I said--
I don’t know. Between your teeth you played the ghost
Of Rilke, the night choir grazing our bodies
With quivering-something. It is impossible now to say
That we were in love, though the foxes
In my heart ran wild when you turned the jar,
When you flirted with the single string
On the harp. Then they lay still in the field,
Waiting. Now I think they were waiting, like us,
Like the single-string music you blazed, waiting
To return to the cold underside of dream.
Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí writes from Nigeria. His work has appeared/ is forthcoming in The Sun, AGNI, the Hopkins Review, Kenyon Review, Banshee, Joyland, Mooncalves: An Anthology of Weird Fiction, and elsewhere. He is the author of the chapbook, A Pocket of Genesis (Variant Literature, 2023). Ògúnyẹmí is a student of History and International Studies at Lagos State University.