My Father's Body By Wale Ayinla
is an open door. the creaks of the wood, the soft wine
of dayspring lavished on concrete. the skin surfacing
summer heat. maybe the body is the morning light,
the azure of the ocean I am named after. the bay
that leeches. look how I smell of his wild gentleness,
his mouth all over me. a smattering of dark waters
inside my veins. his face, an apology. his silence,
a silver lining–a knife that undoes me. I will pretend
to be my father. the shelter of broken things,
the vanishing. his face, my vowels. the shapes of time
are responsibilities of the dead. how many squares
make a reliquary? in this context, I am the compass
cast upon a pond, the cardinal of ghosts that do not
hunt. the body is also a funeral. I am afraid of running
in this theatre of nightmares. I’ll be the chrome,
the loneliest chapel. I erect a cathedral of sounds
for a throat. sore praises gather towards heaven.
a confetti of my Savior’s dark owls sent into the sky:
“Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani?” the voice cushioned to a
makeshift hollow. somehow, the body is also
a resurrection. the dead is never dead until its scent
becomes the soil you walk upon. the bridge
of migration. the dead is also abstract, the roof torn
down by morning crows. my only inheritance.