Forest Maths
By Nnadi S
Published 14 July 2021
Dawn in graphics:
a brightly cropped cloud take dew across the length of a waxed May, left undated
like a girl refusing to repeat her skin.
raw light greens me to fed wisdom, stunned by a famished desire.
this much piety to sun, all for my faultless photosynthesis.
nothing is fertile than this hardship.
I attend the wild reserve of oxygen to exist.
stuck to a cylinder & inhaling of rich aura.
at dusk, for want of grape I did a heartless thing.
life, snapped soon as the smashing of quick thumbs
ending a sapling peeled from the underbrush of dead nails.
blood massing the infinite length of my palms, like the alarming of a red text.
I say this with all aspects of my tear gland,
death-eager as a budding poet.
I have seen absence become a metaphor for loss & decay.
time sorts the almighty formula for rot.
I'm elsewhere, happening to you as a puzzle
stalking you through the forest maths of trees & feral surd
like a topic for your distress.
what branch of thought triggers grief?
In the tongue-lolling umami of words, I'm a lad teething in honeyed places.
allow me this branding of dental relish.
we'd have more nights to worry about the sweetness of being veggies.