odim hill is a flight risk

By Precious Okpechi

there’s a kite testing how fast it needs to glide
to halt a cloud in space; a light travelling across
the globe like saturn’s wedding ring; the small town

below looks like a network of dendrites: a little
green here and there, pico-dust storms there and
here – i fear there isn’t any grief it can’t shoulder. i’m

closer to heaven than ever. like the stars, i’m someone
else’s dream: abandoned. much alive. reaching into years
of distance. a hope more resilient than a baby turtle

scrumming past the shore and into the sea. i know
gravity is at its most vulnerable here, if i leap off
this edge, my dancing knees first, i could become a spectacle

for the angels. what i need is to shed my dead skins
the weight of being born into a bloodline marked with
an undying thirst for deserts – the hot sorrows of it.

i am closer to heaven than ever, closer to joy, the sickled
rope only a jump away from my hands. and it’s for this,
i hope, the pheromones in my blood will become a prayer

that’s both my saving and my damnation:
here am i, most loving and faithful servant,
make, in me, a beauty that lives.

BIO:
Precious Okpechi is a Nigerian poet and editor. He is an alumni of the Los Angeles Review of Books Publishing Workshop and The Singing Bullet Writing Workshop. His works appear in Palette, Lolwe, The Shore, Isele Magazine, Ake Review, and elsewhere. Precious is Managing Editor at 20.35 Africa.