My Only Roof Poem by Felix Bongjoh

My Only Roof
(i)

I lean forward, head bent
to my chest
to pour out the detritus
of storm-blowing moments

scooped out
of a deep pit
stretching its tail

to roaring falls, showers
of withered leaves
swelling mounds on old silt.

A narrow trunk
widens at the bottom
of a deep cauldron
of memories
bubbling quietly

with a pile of thorns,
a stack
of packaged soot, a past full of trees
bearing no fruit.

And new floods
from storms knocking
at all doors

have bolted down heavy gates
to new fields.

(ii)

I've picked towers
on a shredded
sepia of dim flowers
and diamonds
from weevilled grain.

While my neighbors
who sowed the purest
of seeds,
mulched through all storms,
have pulled out only mats
of nibbling burning ants.

They've have stood,
widening their eyes
for a sprouting
plant, but split only roots
with no buds of nuts.

(iii)

They've harvested pebbles
and gravel
with bleeding hands.

With fingers stretching like vines,
they've ploughed through
only chains of crawling ants,

thickening into ridges
of anthills and nests of leaves
by tents for moths,

while I wriggle out of flames
swooshed out by lost hope.

(iii)

Let me dip myself
into my lake of sludge, a mat
of silk stretching
its arms to grab new bugs,

where I've spat out
grumbles
amid tones of bass,

heavy drums of thunder
falling on roofs sinking on me.

Let my sky carry
an embroidery of stars
to toss down over

my only quivering roof
sheathed with fog
and unmelted snow,

the only bright cotton moon
rolling on my floor
from a still frozen sky
yet to melt into a river of sobs.