Flesh And Breath Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Let amaranth and boulder
look at each other
in the face and toss off
swords bawling out

what each looks like
in a glass sky's falcon-pulled
mirror sweeping through
both bone and flesh.

The battle pokes and mangles,
but under a cloud
of who's the horned

and antlered barking victor
without biting off
the other's ear,

both bow to each other
and bow out of the fight
to glove their hands

with fists of words rolling
from tongues like pieces
that do not burn,
but grow flowers
on temples and cheeks

(ii)

Says the giggling amaranth
twirling into a spiral
twisting into the ellipse
of a horse-pulled river:

Boulder, through slabs
of regolith, you break
as gravel flies off your body

like flies fat-fed from
lumps of droppings and dung,

the dung beetle buzzing
over you, as your lose limbs
are flipped and rolled

into your mountain carrying
hippos and rhinos of rock.

But in a tsunami, you're
rooted off your home of earth
to trample on me,

leaving only chopped chunks
to gleam in green crystals
of a spirogyra melting into a swamp,

but attired in a coat of chlorophyll,
I fly with a bird to sit by you.

(iii)

Says the boulder
Scratching and wrinkling
face to pull out flaming eyes
and beaming cheeks
for a smile as round as
the boulder sitting on himself:

You're an indigo flame
always burning
and melting me
out of my closed-in cauldron.

I'm just flesh and bones
In my elephant-shouldered body
breathing in the wheels
of your breath to spin me forever.