The Unexpected Dessert
Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

Each night I step out
and watch the sky singing,
I listen to the echo of its voice;
watch it lowered with a ladder
clinging to its walls;
a naked knife hangs on its bough,
at the mouth of the moon,
surrounded by stars, adored by the sun.
A mirror collapses from its hands,
like a sheet of broken glass,
where my face lies in shards
between the gendered clouds
and the bending, pruning wind,
a farmer reaps an unseeded harvest.
My sadness is the orange juice
dripping down my throat
spreading chill, goosebumps,
and my pain is the sauna
in which I dry my wet blood.
Will you not suck hope for a dessert?