11.52PM, AND PINING
Jerry Chiemeke
(for “Serah”)
Your eyelids make for shelter
and the expulsion of sound
from your vocal chords
remind me of the evening
I swore that your breathing
was the one alarm I looked
forward to waking up to.
I can’t tell what keeps you warm
on evenings where mattresses
seem four times larger
but the only thing I want
wrapped around you
tighter than your beads
is my arms.
I want to trade
your nose ring
for the front tip of my lips
so I can feel the heat
of your breath on my chin
and know where to flow from
when I decide to find out
what flavours of lip gloss
you have been trying out lately.
I send my mind on voyages
as I yearn to stumble on ways
to get around the diameters of you,
there are no memories
out here to attempt
confusing themselves with dreams
but I reach out for any
faint images that would
grace me with an idea
of what it would feel like
to get lost in you while
searching for gold in damp places.
Slow breathing, grabbing,
incoherent tones that speak of discovery,
Torsos learning the art of symmetry,
Colliding pulse rates, indicative
of hearts that won’t mind being in sync
toes finding space to
stretch across each other
Oxygen traded for units of carbon
eyes engaged in rendezvous
with just enough room
for sweaty noses to fall in warm embrace.
These days I find it hard
to tell what is good for me
or what is just thorns guised as pineapples
but I can say for sure
that I know where my head
craves to be
under bulbless rooms by 11.52pm,
and when the world stops
leaving my mouth agape
as my hair brushes the clouds
I am fully aware of
the two brown rocks
that I want to be seen clutching
solemnly in my final hours.
