A Hippo's House Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

A stony
charcoal cloud
shoots itself
up and through

the emerald
surface
of a flowing
warbling river.

In the deep
and shallow
taupe waters

of the river
and
crawling riverside
baked by sun,

a hippo grinds
and churns
mud into dough
he kneads

into the burnt
brick angles
of his spinning
cheekbones.

From morning
to evening
with one yawn,

he builds
dozens and scores
of ivory-walled
houses

he hurls off
with a mouth
of short
and tall ivory bricks.

He dives deep
into the water,
to scoop out
a pile of stones?

(ii)

Hippo, the great
angle
and circle-cutting
architect

and well-stocked
mason,
carrying hammers
on your molars,

how many more
houses
will you
build at one go?

(iii)

Hippo chuffs off
to say many
houses
and well-cut caves
and dungeons.

Hippo growls
and roars
with a wrinkled face
at me,

his eyes perched
on his head,

his toy ears
small wheels
steering him
on a trip
downstream,

a pile of clayey mud
waiting for him

to mix his dough
for bricks
to build a bunker.

And he shrinks
into himself,
when I ask him
for keys
into his house,

as he wheezes out:
nobody sneaks out
of my house,
the cave
of a stretched
yawn devouring all.