Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí

The field—

An endless hour. In it, a boy on his knees
Is colligating fragments of dead water— Teach me 

Faith, Lord. He fits his small voice with wings
As he strings throbless drop to pulseless drop. 

Are we not all dead to once? Soon, 
You, too, will be unknown to your own 

Crimson bone. Moths disturb the air, marigolds 
Wave in the wind. Sour leap, cluster of aches 

In the brief pocket of summer, joy like a blade 
Tearing the sky for milk—I hear this is the portion of 

The shadow of want. Thus, I stay behind 
The pellucid mirror, counting my reed-fingers.

Flamingoes with crusts of light on their wings 
Sail the wind, flow like cool water over the field. 

The boy drops the weave of sorrow. Unearths 
The arrow that once sat inside his father’s chest, 

The one the man said he’d borrowed from an archangel 
Named Rosin. And there it is in the pocket of earth, waiting,

True rib of memory. The boy sticks in his hand, arms, full body 
Bent like a shot deer’s—to lift out the insignia; 

The pocket stretches into beyond and beyond. 
The pulsing hour clicks shut like a door.



Ernest O. Ògúnyẹmí writes from Nigeria. His work has recently appeared/ is forthcoming in AGNI, Joyland, Kenyon Review, Bodega, Poetry Ireland Review, Bath Magg, Cincinnati Review, Worcester Review, Rust+Moth, the South Carolina Review, the minnesota review, Mooncalves: An Anthology of Weird Fiction, and elsewhere. He is currently pursuing a BA in History and International Studies at Lagos State University.