Lullaby for My Loneliness
The soul of the outdoors wafts towards
my direction with the smell
of trimmed grass & birdsong as accompaniment.
I rebuke the sky that exudes illumination,
the clouds that constrict themselves
to cause rainfall. I paddle whimpers
across the sea of my voice. A streak
of nightmares perfects sleep’s erasure.
I have to satiate this sixty-nine kilograms
of uncertainty till dawn peaks.
I fear the broad streets of daylight & expanse
of buildings more than a room starved of windows.
So the shadows return to curl into me.
Picture the Eponym of an Ache Writing a Poem Like This
The dead is pasture for the worms but who comforts the
survivors? Who agrees to sit with the eponym of aches?
In 2015, Uncle E was wheeled out from my sight.
Two days after, Aunt L fed the streets her grief
over & over in a marathon crying session while
she stopped once for her mouth to find water
In a dream, the sky watches him pluck wildflowers
from a meadow of lying grass & shadows of birds.
He remedies the pricks with a gentle rub of the arms.
Never was he a man that unlatched a tongue to cuss.
Upon waking, it is with a face chiseled the way
a five-year old would appear before they startle
the air with crying. God, I have lost many good
people for you to consider silence appropriate.
Aunt’s laughter slumps, her face a tirade of wrinkles.
She is the one whose existence is begged to elope.
Michael Akuchie is a poet of Igbo-Esan descent. He is a recipient of the 2020 Roadrunner Review Poetry Prize and is an Orison Anthology nominee. His chapbook manuscript, WRECK (forthcoming Winter, 2020), was selected by José Olivarez to win The Hellebore 2019-2020 Poetry Scholarship Award. He tweets @Michael_Akuchie.