Counting down

By Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi

The whole house, like a body, fenced hot with fleshed clothes that refuse to dry.
This, itself, is war, the beginning of the end,
the derivation of warmth—like the feeling after a burn
raged by a fire of ourselves. We, at the other end of the scale,
awaiting a little tip, the mercy of a storm after noon.
The noon itself, expecting nothing, the watching forest,
the judging seasons, and their judged bodies.

Everyone falling on each other, becoming shadows.
No prints, only mouths full of light as we blind each other
or drown the fire. Spare me the peace of these well-defined insanities.
Time is fast slipping, and I have many lives to live,
many self-portraits, many walls to build so I can hang
a clock beside another, pretending one ticking is a heartbeat
climbing the rope I lent down like a hand.
And when I find you, you will be on your feet,
hands branching out for embrace, a summer in your smile—whole.

BIO:
Oladejo Abdullah Feranmi, a black poet, won the Deconflating Surveillance with Safety contest and received commendation at the 2024 HART Prize for Human Rights. He was a finalist in the Hayden’s Ferry Review Poetry Prize ’23, with work featured or forthcoming in POETRY, Heavy Feather Review, Strange Horizons, and more. Twitter; @tinybecomings