Learning to Translate the Code of You: A Pantoum
by Prosper C. Ìféányí
All the ways we have rippled into a song.
All the ways everything sings & wears us inside out
Like the unhidden marrow of the sun’s tentacles.
I gave up my light, & there was no lonelier way to say it.
All the ways everything sings & wears us inside out:
White-washed exoskeleton, grim-paled leaf, moon-screened
Skin, giving up light— there was no lonelier way to say it.
In a tale about yearning, my beloved is a bright abyss,
An exoskeleton, a grim-paled leaf, a moon-screened skin.
Here, only I can elegize the photographs of youth we may never have.
In a tale about yearning, we long to touch the bright abyss
But that, too, is something the body cannot unfunerate.
I elegize the photographs of youth, that I may never have
To leave your side. I am with you in ableness & cancer.
I know there are things the body cannot just unfunerate,
But trust me I am learning, learning to translate this code of you.
All the ways everything sings & wears us inside out
Like the unhidden marrow of the sun’s tentacles.
I gave up my light, & there was no lonelier way to say it.
All the ways everything sings & wears us inside out:
White-washed exoskeleton, grim-paled leaf, moon-screened
Skin, giving up light— there was no lonelier way to say it.
In a tale about yearning, my beloved is a bright abyss,
An exoskeleton, a grim-paled leaf, a moon-screened skin.
Here, only I can elegize the photographs of youth we may never have.
In a tale about yearning, we long to touch the bright abyss
But that, too, is something the body cannot unfunerate.
I elegize the photographs of youth, that I may never have
To leave your side. I am with you in ableness & cancer.
I know there are things the body cannot just unfunerate,
But trust me I am learning, learning to translate this code of you.
Prosper C. Ìféányí writes from Lagos, Nigeria. His works are featured or forthcoming in Transition, Black Warrior Review, Magma Poetry, Obsidian, and elsewhere. Reach him on Instagram and X @prosperifeanyii