Which Firmament? Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

From the gate
into a bridge
over an elastic
sea stretch,

they're shown
a glass
cottage dropped

down from
sky at a pier's
edge
into the sea

brushed
and rubbed
by sea waves

and pomaded
by the gleam
and beams
of sunniest sun.

(ii)

They trudge
through
the pier flanked
by sea,

as they look
straight
into the sky,

the pier
piecing sky's
silver glass.

They sneak
through,

looking sky's
horizon
in the eye,

that spot behind
a bird's flight
housing a rainbow
butterfly cloud

melting
into a star's
waxy lime splash.

(iii)

They footslog
and plod,
foot riding foot,

trailing
foot steering
foot to toe
the line of foot,

but eyeing
their steps,
as they brush
each
other's heels,

reading spine
squiggles
of bones
from neck to waist,

seeing no gap
between
front and back,

hanging close
to the center
cut off
from balustrades.

(iv)

At last,
they close in
and enter
the cottage

at the pier's
edge,
spinning light
from
candelabra

tossing their
heads into
sky,
a fleeing rising
laddered
stretch,

as breezes
brush their
cottage
and they catch
only zephyrs,

as they dine
under a splayed
moonlight,

the firmament
high up there
but here

flowered with
garden beams
from sky
woven into ship
shanks,

air without
buckles,
as they care
about nothing,

but a sky's
rainbow arc,

not here,
not there.
Not up. Not down.