by Tobi Kassim
Every time we cross paths long membranes
Weaken. Porous windows, vision merges
After our eyelids rub. Darker sense but
I recognized you still. After you shaved
Your head your name was ashes.
We scooped cinders of a flagging fire
From the pit and spread black dust around
The roots of a garden thronged with nightshades
And squash. The coal you smeared said how the dead
still feed on our spent embers. Weak renewal
glistened in the dark like an earring, the moon.
Your hair still surges back lighter. I ran
Ahead of myself to thank you for that hug,
You opened me out of myself, the gates
To the garden, our blurry kingdoms, black
Anthers in our yellow blossoms, pincers
For night’s blue powder, first and last light sifted
Like flour, coated the line between seeing
And being as one. You particulate, you
color in a cloud. Ether, I’m sensitive.
seep through me like sleep.
Tobi Kassim was born in Nigeria and currently lives in New Haven. His poems have appeared in The Volta, the Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, and The Brooklyn Review.