Circumnavigation
by Chisom Okafor
My father suggests we go into the night,
telling stories of war to keep awake:
how the ancient warriors of our tribe,
by doing the unimaginable to themselves,
did more to others. How violence makes all things
whole again.
I’m not listening to him.
In my head, a flower has just begun
to sprout, in the direction
of scattered photon rays, and
is headed towards my windowpane.
In real time, I am exactly six thousand,
nine hundred and seventy miles away from home.
But I want to think I am home again.
I want to think my father has become my father again.
Instead, I imagine there is a bird
trying to break free from my chest,
and has become trapped
in this complicated art of escape.
The bird is me. And my chest is my father’s.
And even in the face of an abundance of light,
applause of spring, or joy of bloom,
the only life I know is not measurable,
is a three-dimensional pyramid
of separation, time,
and distance.
telling stories of war to keep awake:
how the ancient warriors of our tribe,
by doing the unimaginable to themselves,
did more to others. How violence makes all things
whole again.
I’m not listening to him.
In my head, a flower has just begun
to sprout, in the direction
of scattered photon rays, and
is headed towards my windowpane.
In real time, I am exactly six thousand,
nine hundred and seventy miles away from home.
But I want to think I am home again.
I want to think my father has become my father again.
Instead, I imagine there is a bird
trying to break free from my chest,
and has become trapped
in this complicated art of escape.
The bird is me. And my chest is my father’s.
And even in the face of an abundance of light,
applause of spring, or joy of bloom,
the only life I know is not measurable,
is a three-dimensional pyramid
of separation, time,
and distance.
Chisom Okafor lives and writes in Tuscaloosa, where he is studying for an MFA in Creative Writing (poetry) at the University of Alabama. His work has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and the Gerald Kraak Prize, and has also received support from the Commonwealth Foundation.