Mooing Cow By A Closet Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

At the foamy wharf
a drifting shore
lined with a closet's edge
of crumpled white pants.

And unfolded creased shirts,
sedge and edge
sticking out with nylon
threads over spume.

Spreading white goatees
and sheep skin, shepherds
strolling at the far banks.

Cotton linen and rag flakes
bloom and boom
with white leaves of water,

high split waves
planting shrubby trees
as the sea cow moos.

(ii)

A row of fingered waves
low and shoo,
rolling off to shore.

Spat-out waters are wheeled
in from the high seas
again as winds steer the tide,

pushing more waters
to cruise on faster wheels -
on crooked
wriggling worms and eels

tossed off by the evening
bulldozer
of large wrinkles of water,

as they smash the banks
with a jar and a swoosh.

(iii)

But the voice isn't
the ship's hoot,

the mooing cow
yet to be slaughtered

when passengers
wave goodbye
on a vessel's bleeding deck,

parting relatives hollow
with nostalgia,

their closets
swirling in the shore's
subdued winds,

a breeze

taken over by bees
humming
the song of early moments,

a wavy separation
far from hushing new waves.