A Tailor's Ritual Song Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(for a customer)


(i)

I have tailored
leaves
and grasses
to fit
antlered beasts.

Customer,
to cut out
shirt and pants
and a tuxedo

for the tree
arms
and trunk
legs you carry,

I grab and size
you up
not for a punch,

but a breezy,
whispering tap
and brush
on the head

to place you
by a windmill's
filtering nook.

(ii)

It'll spin
and roll you up
in a wind
and storm,

as stormy
scissors
thread, along
chalked
lines with hands
of the gods

for a straight
stitch
to fit waist
and neck,

as a spool unwinds
thread
with a canary's
lyre
and a nightingale's
pulling song.

(iii)

Customer, you
molded me out
of earth
to be your tailor

often zigzagging
like a snake
going crooked
with brittle,
quaking hands,

the worm-spat
clay of fingers
bearing
head and shoulders

on tilting
walking feet
stretched out

on the thorny
carpet
of earth's
of jagged fabric

I cannot
tread on
without
a god-curled
slither

spun by tics
and wiggles.

(iv)

Your breath
presses
the treadle
of my machine

to the rhythm
of a bell
shrike to sing
my sewing hand

through
the edge
of life's fabric,

as the river's
ripples
of a smile flow
and float
on your face,

when I dress
you up with
a feather-in-wing
nymph fit
to fly you
back home
with a condor's wings,
as you walk,

lightning
and gale
spinning
and lifting your legs

in your
paraded strides
flanked
by the flames
of aloe
and gold sunflower.