Paper Boat Joy
This body cradles more grievous memories,
Than the beauty of roses, of a lush childhood.
Body, spent & zipped in the ruins of anguish.
I watch how light bolts out my father’s body,
leaving me with a handful of gold dust. Tell
me, of what use are these taste buds, if they’re
alien to the flavour of happiness? Once, my
father, before the earth opened up to him,
told me fate is like a seesaw. sometimes it lifts
you up to the brightness of the azure sky.
Other times, it drowns you in the depths of
ocean, where light cannot step in & stay. With
this hands which are also his, I plant a pint
of my blood in the brown earth with the
hope that it sprouts forth a better version of
me—a happy boy, carrying all the rays of the
sun in his eyes. But is this not what nature is,
a hand stretched out to snatch all the things
we hold dear, the things with a room in our
hearts? I know how loss looks, silhouetted.
I, too, have seen it in my father’s eyes, the
way his eyes were fixed to the sky, Godwards.
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Poem (c) Raymond Favour