Pantoum
My mother had a dream.
She said I was at sea
I caught something bare.
Heaping, a snake.
She said I was at sea,
because I turned the haul into a fish
heaping a snake
from phantoms.
Because I turned the haul into a fish
her black discards gills.
From phantoms, to triage,
I just saw a boy biking in one direction, and then, after traveling,
her black discards gills.
I awake like an anvil, coarsened.
I just saw a boy biking in one direction, and then after traveling—
how do I know? Same shorts, lime green.
Like an anvil.
My grip froze.
How do I know? Same shorts, lime green.
From shadows.
My grip froze.
She chides me.
From shadows,
she made roti with honey and folded it like a crêpe.
She chides
me,
for riding without knee pads,
she made roti,
when there was no such thing as strength or resilience
because I had no need for either.
For riding without knee pads,
her black hijab sifts through the corn brake,
when there was no such thing as strength or resilience
for I had no need for either,
and yet in spite of gifts that made her sonar
it could not be explained, how
she dreamed that I had killed myself.
She chides me.
You have avocado and this other fruit called ansura.
A volcanic pear that expelled
ash into the streetlights.
Ash into the streetlights.
Treelines
I do not ask that your love be unconditional;
I ask it to be rooted in reality.
As with a new boy in a new town,
I am taken with the differences.
Plants shave, arrows of truce exert
pressure. Up is down and down is
sagehood. At races,
not even blinders crowd our vistas: the
blue-eyed griffins, a cubed lotus.
Of pyrites, promethean
caterpillars, depths look like gold when
soberly composed to the sun.
We have reversed the emulsion,
ancient once, modern now.
There is no reason we
are appointed its caretaker.
Like a power,
faceless, the plead
erodes grammars.
Raving
This is a wild that only needs borders.
With a nose in the air it surrenders
the unneeded. Dashing. A throne, a lobby.
Here there is no molding for a monument.
The doors are spontaneous, and free from form.
Growing angst, I was wrong. I was waiting for
an invitation. Now I am discourteous. It’s as if I could be
in front of a globe and see only a garden. A craving, a
breeze touting a breaststroke. Happier, still, the inhabitants.
Parading the fish, even if it makes for a small catch. Brave
fountain, don’t you know? We are closer to siblings than
cousins. No quicker than an apprentice who has frustrated her
master, and for her antics she is siloed, then given an
unimportant job. It wounds her, but then in a show of pique
she has turned it into a masterpiece. It is the tag for ether.
This was what I wanted; nothing more than to be alive.
CHANDA MUKANGA MWALIMU is a Zambian-American writer from Silver Spring, Maryland. A collection of his poetry was a finalist for publication with Fjords Review. When not thinking of lines, he serves creators as an attorney.
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