Window Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Greater than the pearl
chest of an alabaster man,
arms stretched out
from jamb to jamb, each
a stiff bone-angled pillar,

a rooted traffic policeman
steering in a hollow
of sunlight's swelling halo
expanding bone light wings.
.
How you let trees
in the creeping yard skip
with chiffon and lace sun
to dive into my room.

How you let in dry
twig fingers flipped out
by thin scaled-up trunks
to cartwheel
into my wax-melting room,

planting their carob
shadows across the floor
still in its snore
of soft-stamped feet.

And grow on my cream wall
hugging every light-molded
silhouette to lean
and plant itself down

to a taupe river, no ripple
or wave ruffling it,
as it floats and flows
in its turquoise gown,

a quiet rugged floor
swelling up
with the bleating hairs
of a grey cashmere coat

trailing a macaroon
cream crawl down
beneath the door's bottom rail.

(iii)

Sitting arms-sprayed window,
you toss a cornsilk slice
of rising world at me,
the cotton sun grabbling
Picasso's rolling brush

with a tilt to flush hue
and the sun's slew
of ivory flipping over to the pearl
of moonstone gems
filling in dark slits on a bright
white nylon-wearing day.

As the sun sails back
Into the raised arms
of tall buildings flashing out
silver and candle-lit
flames from a glowing sun

in bisque feathers
and moth-gray ashy shadows
melted into gossamer
threads of a steady
hung-down expanding cream curtain.

Window, how you scoop out
dark creeping silhouettes
from my deepening cave
of life in a room without wheels

to spray on my neck
and rolled-out chest rails
and well-lit tunnels
to ignite and light up
the thousand-branch tree
of a climbing summersaulting day.