The Sting of Empty Bitterness and its Pleasure

The noon sun blocked the shadow of the flat

from its interior. Like a mouth,

it slithered out, resting against the glowing moss,

those candelabras of morning now dimly green.

The photosynthetic nature of the moment was not lost

but stood ajar before me and through my eyes.

The windows into that hour gleamed

and showed their soul. It was full

of the outside colour of things. It was full

of that heat smoking off the rooftop,

the sizzle and bake. And it filled me 

like a ceaseless drum pouring salt

into the wound I’d just extinguished

with my breath. The bitterness stung, but in all these

there was the early morning’s bird decline,

that dwindling silence that filled from room

to room the brittle yawn of the vast depression

dreamy in my heart. I mean the outside

filled the emptiness inside me and gave it shape,

an animal shape, and it growled and paced

the glass cup in my hands. I sipped the thorns

from the rind, and, yes, the bitterness still stung,

but it pierced my side with a deep pleasure

that crawled into the world as a slumbering giant,

repose its only response. So here do I lie,

spent and flaccid as a lake in the sunset,

a blush of birds kissing nocturne from its surface.

I welcome all the graces stepping through

the torn fabric of heaven to witness my pleasure.

I have turned a corner in my life,

and before me is the mirror of the world,

darkening, growing strangely pleased,

premolars gleaming in the pond.

---

Osahon Oka is a Nigerian poet who loves to experiment with how far the English language can go when blended with free verse and eccentricities of his own inner world. His writing has appeared in Wild Pine, Icefloe Press, Lit Quarterly, PoetryColumnND, Sango-Ota, and elsewhere. He is a winner of the Visual Verse Autumn Writing Prize, 2022. He can be reached on X @onyemazua7735.