SCHEHERAZADE

for Chinyerem

By Chibueze Obunadike

“…thunder is a sudden noise that begins with light.”
— Fernando Pessoa

i don’t know if, when you close your eyes,
you can still see it.
          all the way back to the beginning, 
your voice, like light, spilling into my life,
that lazy summer evening, the future 
sprouting like dandelion seeds
                   & burying itself inside us.

there is no mystery to its magic,
this simple act of falling.
              you cross paths, you trip, & succumb 
to gravity, all your limbs splayed
              out on the floor like an unfinished dance.

her heart answers the question your mouth
doesn’t ask & suddenly there is only one
heart in the room, two bodies,
      two hands, holding onto each other 
& it is its own promise.

*tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
          tell me we’ll never get used to it.

rewind to four months ago, the night is dark
& shapeless, the city around us has just gone
to sleep & i am in your arms. 
i finally understand peace the way the ocean 
did when God commanded it to be still.

*lines borrowed from Richard Siken’s poem of same title.

BIO:
Chibueze Obunadike is a young Nigerian poet and writer whose poems are published in Libretto NG, Best “New” African Poets 2018 anthology, CFW Freedom magazine where it was recently awarded the Collins Eleisoro Literary Prize, and elsewhere. He sometimes writes from a small town in Enugu State. IG @ watchmans_flame