Exile
Goodnews Karibo
for my brother, Kueniemugh Karibo
when I was ten or less, I did not
know a time would come when I would
nestle grief within a couplet.
having reached for the broader fields of
my memory, having touched a reptile in
my sleep, I think of my body the way I think
of a sandstorm or an earthquake or a shark
in a warm body of blood,
there are places and times I would love to
evade, the gap between where the universe
buried a book in my navel and where I lay
watching time rush by. behind a monolith
of green shrubbery, the soldiers of providence
watching and waving, I sort through the vacuum
dotted with figures washed away by the
passage of a cloud of firepower.
the gangly shaft of hope that shores me up
in a conundrum of a place serving as both
exile and fortress; where I shuffle for the
bones crying in my soul–their wastes reeking
through the wind as compost.
when I was ten or less, I did not
know a time would come when I would
nestle grief within a couplet.
having reached for the broader fields of
my memory, having touched a reptile in
my sleep, I think of my body the way I think
of a sandstorm or an earthquake or a shark
in a warm body of blood,
there are places and times I would love to
evade, the gap between where the universe
buried a book in my navel and where I lay
watching time rush by. behind a monolith
of green shrubbery, the soldiers of providence
watching and waving, I sort through the vacuum
dotted with figures washed away by the
passage of a cloud of firepower.
the gangly shaft of hope that shores me up
in a conundrum of a place serving as both
exile and fortress; where I shuffle for the
bones crying in my soul–their wastes reeking
through the wind as compost.
Goodnews Karibo is a Port Harcourt poet who travels the earth in search of stories to tell Kaleela. His poems have appeared in African Writer, Brittle Paper, The Rising Phoenix, etc. He tweets via @slendergrass
