You Sing of a Leaving | JK Anowe | Poetry

we were together, i forget the rest.

– Walt Whitman

it wasn’t a metaphor when i said i’d give you the world look at it—a rapid
of wry lying on the cold bedroom floor all meat & bones & deflation the
horizon that welcomes all my ruinous loves when they say goodbye over
the telephone i’m sorry i jerked off before we made it to the bed sorrier
this poem of a future long past still is a knife stuck in my windpipe i’m
only a man because god wore damaged boys inside-out so well they co-
uld pass for his empty breastpockets it is easy to mistake the sound of
you stumping towards the door for pelvic-thrusts easier to kill your eve-
ry footfall before they reach the dust of sidewalks tie you to the bedside
& set the house on fire watching everything but our curse burn but you
already sing of a leaving & i can only suffice the sound of my own voice
asking you (not to stay) to leave me some morphine at the door

About the Author:

Nkwaonye JK Anowe is a 2015 recipient of the Festus Iyayi Award for Excellence (poetry), University of Benin. Poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Brittle Paper, African Writer, Gnarled Oak, Praxis Magazine Online, Enkare Review, Poetry Life & Times, Elsewhere Lit, Gullible Gimmicks (personal blog), and his chapbook, a parable for paranoia, is up for free download at Praxis Magazine Online. He lives, teaches and writes (when he’s not consumed with wanderlust) from somewhere in Nigeria.