An Overstretched Absence Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

It's been an thick elastic
stretched thin
to a breaking point,
as we drift further
from each other

to the edge of a desert's
collapsing cliff.

It's been a curtained stretch
since we faced
the sun in its full breath
shooting out strands

of warm stroking feathers,
your palm spraying

unshaved cotton with all its hairs
rolling like flying ashes
on my drifting melting palm,

as the sun flipped out
a silvery cream flash,
a five-fingered ray.

(ii)

It's been ages since
we drew in
the butterfly-sized sun
to sit and gaze at us,

as we ripped it
into a flat stroking
mat to brush off
the clart built up by a trek.

The threaded and knitted
walk took us
through rain-woven grasses
and flower bushes
hiding a star-hurling lotus.

We've trudged on wet
and withered leaves,

wandered in marshy
fields in search of each other.

Stars have tumbled off
shredded moons
on the abandoned trajectory
of our last meeting
on suspended angles and curves.

(iii)

It's been a stormy
rumbling tunnel of time,
since we last searched
for each other

through flower shrubs
and embroidered grass,
where dwarf vines

crawled in twill weaves
through sky-touching stems
flipping out tassels

and gold flowers hurled
into winds' mouths,
as we grabbed a gale off
the glue that binds us,

when lightning's stitches
and a tornado's dusty
embroidery has no space
for a double-threaded hem.