An Oriole's Boots Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Down a closed-in path
through the garden,
long swords of leaves poked me,

scrubbed off dew
from my shrinking shirt.

I met an oriole
in boots, lifting its feet
like a heavy piece
of luggage

tightened onto its thighs
with a reef knot.

My shirt too coated
with a misty canine-toothed
drizzle dropping
and sinking,
as it rolled off to the ground.

The drizzle crawled
with spiders
and ants, my back
a furnace of nibbles and bites
heating me up.

(ii)

In my new heavy sweaty
Attire cooking me
in the stretching cauldron
of a sizzling garden,

a dog stormed out
with a thunderous roar
that clothed me

in an iceberg breaking down
into icicles, as I turned
back to peek at the oriole

soaring like a lighting
flash cutting through a trajectory
that gave the oriole

the boots it foot-slogged with
in a heavy garden.