God! All the girls say I’m Jerusalem,

surrounded by gigantic mountains;

some say I’m nature’s poor patchwork

and I’m not beginning to show leakage.

There’s no trembling in the sky,

there’s no falling of the clouds;

my defences are rigid and stone solid

and I have not ceased to be a lightless night,

or a field of flowers littered with corpses.

I embrace the night like it is day,

though I see what jewels lie on the ground,

sparkling, illuminating dark objects between.

Like my head sticks within the clouds,

and I have no way of turning right and left,

but stranded between the earth and the stars,

I hang my neck where the noose is strong.

I’m now in a house with a thousand doors,

Yet, I lock each room in my blood.

But you picked up this secret flame

burning like a distant scent of rushing water;

led by a spirit you cannot comprehend,

you arrive with hesitation at my door, knocking.

Now, I stand before you naked,

a man in love, in epileptic surrender,

a man who cannot speak or hear;

a man who was not blind from birth;

but wander without eyes except your light.

I am challenged and paralysed,

I am physically disabled and displaced

dead to everything around me.

Like a bone lying carelessly on a garden floor,

I pant for water, air and nutrients,

not knowing how to return to my former life,

but knowing only the outlines of your heart

that feeds me like water, air and nutrients,

and not cast me away like a rejected prodigal,

but wash me in popsicles, wrap me in joy.

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah