birdsongs

autopsy reads: there is no more water to shut
the fire clean. this ruin is balanced, on a hem,

tipsy. i don’t know which to pray god holds.
two options [the bucket breaks, the water stills]

[the bucket stills, the water breaks] —you suck.
a nurse picks a towel, and polishes herself —an

étagère, to whisper to god, olórun sàánú into a
hole that houses another hole. she is returned

grainy, like a dim-skinned figurine counting its
pieces on a marble floor. sometimes, i wonder

which is harder: blessing the moon to name it
after an allamanda, sour roots, to count scores

or serenading a night with stories into what
equals a cricket’s melody. you could swear

our stars carry no fortune, and our veins —no
gene at all. i mean, who knows if we have

butterflies in our bellies, chaperones knitting
our elbows into a string of unclipped wings.

i mean, this poem might be a phoenix wand
finding its harry. or an organic resin dragging

every crimsoning into an auto-correction [bye]
or —this is a poem written to inform you that

At the end, it is the bucket that breaks in songs.

Poetry
-
September 7,
2022
-
2-minute
read

Sunday T. SaheedSeptember 28, 2022