ISSUE 9

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

 

SUGGESTED EDITS:

 

A Man of Dust

I saw a man return in a bag of dust.
 

My cousin sprang to war in pyjamas,
euphoria smeared his lips, a spring in his legs,
the wetness of June did not hinder his body
from leaving his soul on the battlefield
long before he arrived at the scene,
wielding machine guns, Kalashnikov,
a fortress of secret deaths, open tears,
wrapped in a castle of Ogbunigwe.        (did you mean 'armor' instead of 'castle' here, maybe?) 

That day, smoke climbed the rooftops
and the night did not pretend to be dark.
He was the tongue of a fresh palm leaf,
green, growing out of a broken ground
that gave no shelter to the wet termite.

I didn't blame him for running
from the despair that painted the walls of his house

to confront the darkness.
A thousand years of death followed,     ("'days' of death"?)
as though he was the child of sorrow
the universe had created to bear its sins.

He lost his father at the beginning of the war
and his mother drowned at the lake
in the battle to end the peace of the land;
he lost his siblings the day hunger holocaust erupted,    (maybe a bit long? 'lost his siblings in hunger holocaust'?)
after the snake had changed its mind.

Now lies he there in a heap of dry and grey dust,
blood smearing the sides of his lips,
his hands closed, clutching at shadows,
his mouth spread out like an open book           (another spot to possibly shorten. 'his mouth spread open like a book')
the wind crashed into, ripping pages.

See how my eyes turned into a chrysanthemum leaf
that under my gaze stir his feet into an invisible itch,
his hands moving in the fog of death and life,
his eyes blinking into a resurrection.

​​​​

​

​