What Tear Shall I Shed Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

No silver beads
rolling down
to philtrum,

my tongue
licking off the river
from my upper lip.

No mist thawed
into drizzles
tossing off a flint
thread to slither down

a bloated cheek
to a spot of the needle
piercing a hole
to embroider my face

into the bumps
of a crocodile‘s back,

my reptile-coated grief
devouring me
to spit me back,

a flint-faced drop of tear
flying off on a gear

with a light
gray chickadee flapping
wings, as it rolls
out of a swift river,

leaving ashy feathers
above lips stitched
and hemmed
into a pout to explode

from beneath
a bubbling lid, a cauldron
of a mouth

having boiled and broiled
clouds to flow
with hot slobber,

the only drink to turn
a tap some more
for the downpour
inundating chin and chest
down to navel.

(ii)

No streams
dripping down
the mountainside
of a head,

eyes open pipes
with no notch
to stop a waterfall,

when needles bite
off anguish's skin

to bleed out
buzzing bees, as lips
bubble
and tussle with
an overflowing lake,

its banks
settling squawking ducks
flying off,

when a neighbor's hand
drops on my shoulder
like a brittle sky thundering

let the firmament
dapple your face
with sun's thick-feathered

blotting handkerchief
fit for the trash can
consuming all detritus.