Mailman Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Quivering like a rotor
in a turbine burning out
rusty clouds of nuts,
molars too soft to tighten a grip,

I spun an engine
on paper
to beam and shower
the sky with fireflies of stars.

At a post office slot
set on wheels
to fly beams and rainbows

on a polished
glistening sheet - glittering

with an etched-out
nightingale's song,
no crease
on an eagle-winged envelope,

I dropped a letter
full of stamen and pollen
from a buzzing bee.

Shot back to a gate,
my home
dressed in yellow scorpion
hands of fire,

I impaled the mailman
with a gaze
by the mailbox

at my door
to a volcano of flames.

(ii)

He carried a butterfly
of a grin that sailed
with cyber
glittering into eyes of gold.

The man's sunny lake blaze
ground coals of nimbus
into snowy sticky ashes
of perfumed powder,

the firemen
storming in,
only for fused spiders of wires

burning beams on my face,
a bouncing baby
in the mail, my box twinkling

with a days-old bouncing boy
delivered by the mailman

standing anchored
to the sun-showered shore
of his snail-smooth face

throwing back slime
wet fingers plant on an envelope
about to take off with the sea gull.