We met at
a bar in Birmingham on a night
When booze
baptized you
And the
world lost its shape:
New
names
New existence
New world
There’s
a world in every bottle of beer
And you
had twelve bottles before my arrival.
Twelve
worlds in one head is death in disguise.
Satan’s
kingdom has no throne for drunken martyrs.
You
extended your hand
And said
your name, Burner, or
Something
that sounded like the name of a cigarette:
High
deaths
Low deaths
High births
Low births
Those
words escaped your lips like your cigarette smokes
As what
your name meant at that moment;
You were
birth and death.
You were
everywhere, but nowhere.
I
smiled, nodded, but didn’t say my name
Nor
shake hands with you.
My eyes
were two doves, you said.
I nodded
again and adjusted my bra.
You said
my breasts were doves too.
The
fourteenth stick exhausted your lighter’s gas
And I
thought your cigarettes, lungs and liver
Would
find some rest;
I
blinked twice and smokes from the fifteenth
Stick left your lips in leaps and circles.
You were
a lighter.
You are
still a lighter.
No
lighter can light two doves in flight.
©
Echezonachukwu Nduka 2015
(Image source: www.desibucket.com)
