Rodney
Jehu

nothing is a thing that wasn’t first a process that wasn’t first a butterfly before it was pinned to cork parades and much too much to grasp, the living are not among the known decency asks sometimes for ignorance and shrouds lepidopterists are a callous breed

i am ready — like the salty droplet sparkling on my chin stretched round by dull tension refracting all the light that now passes through having spent itself wetting a vanishing path hoping it is still heavy enough— to let go

A gamble for All or nothing was Splitting light from darkness Whence I was born a contrast — Infinity bound, must I eternally Recapitulate bit by bit? Bite by bite, I have learned to call myself An African Bush Elephant — Yet I cannot forget That I come from the sea.

she squinted at us in the gathering dust and trapped a few hard-won tears in her crow’s feet her white hair flailing wildly her ululations escaped as she twirled and we knew in a flash that the dancer never really left — our village was not yet ridiculous enough for a dry joke her toes rapidly pitter-pattered pocking the hard ground that had become cracked like old parchment bearing a fading contract she called us wordlessly into the growing fray and we began to clap faster as she slapped her chest and grunted sharp staccato ugh-ugh-ughs that whistled though her last teeth she coughed and spat and then plucked a wind string that led back to her first dance her knees knocked together and then she flinched with a HA! and then the robin’s egg broke and the sky burst over us she took her last bow in the crashing applause plunged backwards through the falling curtains and exhaled fragrant petrichor

marriage: –bedsheet tug-of-war (brrr) –your alarm saving mine (always) –bathroom time (should i leave it running?) –have-a-nice-day-kisses (running late!) –your hair on my jacket (10 am meeting) –your message: smiling pile of poo (tmi) –crowded 6 train back (homeward!) –food (…i’ll get the dishes hun) –middle couch cushion (jenga feet) –existential dread (whatchawannawatch?) –bed time (COME.TO.BED!) –super serious life-talk (can we, like, tomorrow?) –…i love you too…too much (no…don’t say that…it’s true…how much…this much!!!)dedicated to Ruthie — my heart’s rest, the dream of my past, and my waking joy

We have learned to love The edges of things— Beginnings and ends, Mirages, Spooky apparitions at a distance, That closer inspection Dispels— And forget how everything is contiguous soup Which drowns all meaning. Human ingenuity is this: Draw a line to make one two; Create a cage, invent a freedom; Carve me, out of us.

Round orbs of fire glowed against the night shadows Dotting four or five spots along the top of the old castle wall (were we seen?) We ran shirtless, zig-zagging down narrow and uneven steps Padding barefoot and scattering grit And sweating in the blue air Someone splashed into the water first and the rest of us followed The low moon hung above the waves was chopped into bright wedges That we slapped down with hard strokes, Pulling our way into the world I looked back a few times (I wasn’t the only one who did) The shouts and clanking behind us were now soft and warm Like a pillow whisper before a dream The friendly boat glided darkly towards us (just in time) We flopped onto the wooden bow and smiling teeth and Callused hands helped us to our feet Some of us went below deck to eat warmth and Drink yellow-hued company Cozy under a low ceiling A few of us remained topside a little longer, feeling significant I still remember the deep sky expanding in our chests And thrill winds of escape cradle-rocking and swirling over our wet skin I was cold and miserable

Reasons ago, Before “cheese moons” had yet to ripen cheesy, The sun still bore a grin Riding clouds with blue linings Over a flat world in the eternal now People used to be crayon thin They had heads like O And stood naked with legs like /\ Back when sex was just a misspelling That took two hands to count ~~~ Once upon a time, Our words became fruitful and multiplied And gave birth to “genitalia” on a Sunday /’\ By Monday, we already knew the ubiquity of balls — Telescopes and microscopes Prove the spins, wobbles, revolutions and spirals… So, when the Earth was rolled Into a hard to draw O, We found it just alright In surviving the restless onslaught of knowledge We have lost many good metaphors With a O, sphere or pale blue dot, we can communicate ancient truths — But only new lines of code prefer “oblate spheroid” Some roving dreams only find us When we sleep and momentarily forget what we know

Accra cries in the morning light Before she rides wrapped lovingly in cloth On her mother’s back. She is watched over By white-breasted crows that circle Above the wise and wrinkled Neem trees. She wears skin dark and even as a charcoal stove And with a personality as effervescent as Palm wine in the sweltering midday heat. She cares for the white hen that leads Her timorous chicks through shallow green gutters. She tolerates the bleating of the parade of taxis That crawl slowly round her curves, And she sometimes puts a coin in the clingy hands Of curly-haired children walked In all the way from Chad. Accra can be read in the palms of craftsmen Selling masks like their faces by side of the road, And in the sweat of the unknown genius Sculpting masterpieces on the beach. Accra is serenaded in the quiet soliloquy Of the naked vagrant sitting underneath an ATM And she sits smiling beneath colorful umbrellas Selling pay-as-you go phone cards That connect millions and make some millions. Accra is a song that school children squeal Clothed in the warm love of high noon. Accra is fertile, unapologetically voluptuous With bountiful breasts and an impractical shapely butt. She is beautiful though scarred with tribal marks. She has a dollop of a nose, round cheeks And a ready smile revealing pearly whites. Accra is athletic, hard as chiseled ebony and with Skin stretched tight over abs like cupcake crowns. Today, she is the sexiest thing on the planet And she knows it in her very bones. Accra is old-world chivalry And libidos undiminished by modernity Where fathers teach their sons how to be men And women haven’t forgotten how to control them, And political correctness stays political. Accra walks like royalty, Easy, upright, swaggering and bold, And dances with abandon like the court fool With sharp rhythm that shakes off the dust Of struggle and the weight of the world. She is painfully self-conscious and soft-spoken. Accra washes twice a day and wears her best clothes Especially to church on Sundays and holidays And whenever the spirit moves her Or her pastor says that we are in the end days. Accra rains down rarely but she beats down hard When she does and she wipes the streets clean And bathes masticating goats waiting to die. Accra is the imbecile that defenestrates plastic waste And closes up shop five minutes too early— And stands too closely behind you in queues— The drunken mathematician that forecasts the lotto. Accra is the feeling of guilt that raps at your Rolled-up window waiting at a traffic light— The sorry sight of the young leading the blind. Accra can be friendly and helpful to the needful. She yells like hell and curses but never strikes. The city is thick as smoke from burning garbage And thin as the policeman hiding behind a stop sign. Accra is free as the soldier urinating on your wall. Accra is bitter-sweet and must be swallowed whole As a bolus partially submerged in deliciously oily soup With drowned meat as prizes. She can be found watching straight men Hold hands as they walk down the street, And she remembers the more than curious school boys Who grew up to be homophobes. She can be found walking through doors opened for her. Accra is the plump prostitute that winks at your husband And gives next-to-free jerks to your son and his friends After they’ve been out smoking hookah At a lebanese bar where they are bitten By skinny mosquitoes and go broke buying rich girls’ drinks. Accra can be seen sitting on plastic chairs With company looking positively morose At an poorly lit outdoor bar Listening to those hits from the 90s. Accra is a spiritual place— Where talismans worn can bring you wealth And ghosts and dwarves lurk on tree branches On the periphery of your field of vision. Where an invisible owl hoots danger And a senile grandmother becomes a witch And a cheating wife’s vagina gets sealed shut And an absentee father will have his penis shrivel up— Where the rich must have sacrificed their own children And the poor are atoning for the sins of another life— Where demons wait just outside your door And Satan recruits naive politicians Who forgot to bathe in holy blood of the lamb That you can buy from the monday commute preacher, Along with bundles of panacean herbs for Everything from impotence to back pains. Accra is a universe unto itself Where a shoe-shiner has become a millionaire Where children of privilege have lost everything Where hotels may grow like trees And the sun exposes its nut-sack and tans Accra’s skin Where stars are everlasting unchanging diamonds Where billboards announce that Aids is in fact real Where dignity accrues with age Where a gulf vast as the Atlantic separates generations Where vagabonds get high in cemeteries Where you can feel your soul gyrate To the non-stop thump-thump of drums Fading ancestors continue to beat beneath your very feet.

the searing rays of day-long noon flatten the landscape and bleach the colors — but in the low half-light i easily spot the road’s edge and my traveler shadow stretches forth — i bless the passing cloud that releases me from a frown and raise my head in the shade

the problem is you’re too convoluted it’s these small rooms that make you feel awkward homelessness is a sentence commuted — stretch outside where you can unfurl skyward life under low ceilings makes you stooped

our life will be a mosaic of chance-cut pixels it will have bits of red and blue, silver bows and diamond truths it will cast a smooth glow in the hues of our days it will be roughly delved and mortared with the stories we will tell ourselves our hopes will forever run keenly over the edges let us amble backwards leisurely to discover, slowly, all of the resolving pictures that our love will leave behind

Tender chrysalis, Than another’s butterfly I’d rather my moth