Read Time:53 Second
After Jericho Brown
a poem has to start from somewhere,
progress gracefully through the drafts
and arrive with a form of class.
a poem can just be a point or
a moment; might weigh the 21.3gramme
of a soul or something less than a feather.
my most familiar gesture is silence.
it is what my father taught me.
it is what justifies him too.
the silence reclines in my throat; knuckle-like
Adam's apple: my father's father's father's
seeded gesture that found home in my body.
a home is as hard a body to define.
a home is either the end of the journey
or all the places I'm coming from.
I came from a generation of firsts:
the first son of a first son of a first son.
the first son of a first daughter of a first daughter.
Now all those seeds are fruiting my body
to ripe into a long poem. the poem is
not this. the poem is at home
Olumide Manuel is a Nigerian poet.
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