What I Have For You Poem by Isioma Isichei

What I have for you cannot be greater than
Love of self for this is the greatest of all.
Mine can only tower up to the heavens
Like the Himalayas blooming with thick
Passionate growths that hold

The smiling sun on its head. I can only
Love you the way a man loves a woman- with
Golden carnations that sparkle and spread
To every nook and cranny of the land, just like
Consuming wildfire on grass in harmattan morning

Calling for stellar performance of my fast
Beating heart at the sight of your moon-lined
Pathway, my dearest. What I have for you is not
A decoy of love; slender, lovely shoot that grows and
Withers off at the first ray of dry nights.

It is the dawn carrying with it light so heavy
The darkness is cleared off, and the flower blooms to
Robust solid fragrance in the fertile spring of your body
Wedged between time and essence, not auctioned embrace
In an empty hall where people are trapped under weighty absence.

Even if your eyes tugs and veers the way kite does
Against the wind, itchy and weary with heaviness from
Much poetry written for you by poet laureates, just to
Catch the sail of your love, remember mine is a
Sweetened brew corked up inside your veins and seeping

Into your bloodstreams. I read your similes daily
As beautiful poetry frothing to my taste bud
Where a star is trapped in my mouth like yellow
Substance seeking escape to lighten up dark mist between
Us with prayer: may our lives be sweet together

When we eat with trimmed fingers against the hold of
Complexities while notations are struck to produce
Good melodies that we dance to, influenced by the
Dripping wine of your open kisses in my mouth, o my love,
Crushed inside the feelings I have for you.