My Home
I travel around the world
searching for my home,
my discreet place of rest;
where my bones will find rest
without dousing my passion,
where my body can dance in wool;
I tracked my birth to the moon,
to watch my face in its mirrors,
and worshipped at its silver altar;
then the sun invited me to come
and make its shades my home
even there is too hot for me.
I have also hopped to the sky
far beyond the sorrowing clouds
but the grave is yet its sole target.
the sparkling galaxies and the cosmos,
the various constellations of the universe
have no mirror to show my face.
But in you, I scrubbed out my fate,
and there is no such thing as nostalgia,
when I fill your room like the thickest air.
with you, I do not need to remember
how sharp the blade of time can cut,
or how swiftly memory can disappear.
when you are not there with me,
your shadows overshadow the despair
looming against the weight of time.
if I arrived late with subdued tenderness,
laugh like the light and pull up my chin,
recoil in a corner and scratch me a smile.
for I know the cure for your anger,
the same old magic never betrays,
the warmth of a shoulder, a sachet of love.
Jonathan Chibuike Ukah
Jonathan Chibuike Ukah is a graduate of English and Law living in the
UK. His poems have appeared and will soon appear in the Journal of Undiscovered
Poets, Boomerlit magazine, the Sparrows Trombone, New Note Poetry, New Reader
Magazine, the Pierian, Wildfire Words, Discretionary Love magazine, the Poet
Magazine, etc. He is a winner of the Voices of Lincoln Poetry Contest
2022.