Silhouettes Of Wounds Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

When wounds
burst out
with red
tulip flowers,
dress them up

with cream
breeze-floated
anemones.

Brush them
with a surgeon's
feathers

and butterfly
stroking hands
of daisy lilies,

as sun settles
on a scarlet
dusk
of a campfire
flashing out

sparks to roll off
in creeping
trails
of horses lilies
galloping,
as they bray
and whinny,

when a night sky
bleeds
with speckles
of blush
and berry scars

trailing gold
tears of dry maple
leaves,

as they hang
near the phylum
of air's face,

when bleached
screens
crown and garland
a wincing

and wailing
mourner
with thorns of pain.

(ii)

How do flexed
wind shears
spin scissors
to creep

and cartwheel
with melting twigs

to burn in carmine
skies, leaving
only antlike
gold
flowers to bite

and maul silhouettes
of wounds

digging in more
wounds
to whisk the rose
bandage

that dresses
garnet wounds
without a stain.