I Lie And Roll Over Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(for Agnes Josiane Bongjoh)

(i)

I lie and roll over
on the edge
of a bed's cascades,
these holed empty,

hollow sheets jumping
and wobbling
over each other.

I lie and stretch out
on the breeze-steered lake
of the daisy sheet
that left me abandoned

to a silk hammock
swinging in the breeze.

It still seesaws you
with me, and rocks me
from bank to bank
over the galloping, snailing river

bearing a canoe
I cannot straighten and paddle
without your hands
of zephyr and puffs. Wheel me,

O fly me through
to the bank
to raise you higher than me.

(ii)

I lie and roll over,
pulling you
to my cream drifting bed
of empty lay, a wavy height.

Dropping, cartwheeling
into a deep floor
flapped like a big grackle
in our blanket's furrow.

Folding, folding us up
to roll on and on
in the swimming hands
of swelling ripples.

(iii)

I lie lifted on springs
on a ruffled patch of air
I still float on,
finding no space

on my island
bouncing with us
flipped up
a rising mountain world
with deep holes.

Let me float on the leaf
to swing on a storm
drifting, drifting me

to its beaming flower-
starred tree branch
arched to a slow stream
on flooded waters

singing the song
that glued us to sunlight
in threads of rays
weaving leaves and petals
by a candle light:

O let the light carve out
the curves
of the ripples that make you
bounce over me
with a close pulling breath.