Bathing And Toweling Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Breezy windy
and drizzling,
heavywet slaps
from air

swung to fall
on back's
hollow spine,

as fingers
and
pommeled palm
drum a pane,

scratching
andtalking

with a golden lyre's
voice, as the bird
widens the fan of its
tail in helices.

A gale swooshes
off teak
and birch dust
amid trout
and abalone streaks,

tall silver lines
sketching
themselves down
a pearl river sky
flowing down too,

as it breaks loose
froma swaying
firmament
tumbling rolling
with roof-rattling

song and gongs
on tarpaulin
stretching out
its haunch
breaking back.

(ii)

Palms slip
through glass
with an ibis' voice.

Flying drops glide
whinnying,
as they gallop through.

And snorting, a horse
rubs off
its fur on the window
to scrub off

porcelain
and lace
drips streaming
down the tan

window frame's
wallowing back
tilting
and rising

in a new spate
of downpours
from sky's calabashes
and gourds.

(iii)

No more downpours,
but flashes
of lighter towels
in the wet winds.

And air's pewter
and cream
body is bathed
and toweled.

Airs slimmed-down
body still
dotted with midget
drizzles hanging on

flips out
its broad-winged
hands to seize

melting
pomade from sun's
stretchy arms
andspiraling fingers

polishing
a morning's spine
into a gleaming,
glittering day

with pearl lotion
after a thorough
bathing and toweling,
a rainbow arching

over with the glow
of a day
in a macaw parrot's
full wing span,

the hands
of a deity
from the firmament

completing
life's ablution.