After Wallace Stevens “Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird”

I. This is the only window in this house
II. Inebriation can multiply a hand into a hundred hands feeling up your dress, one window into three.
III. Every window has a portal for dirt and grime to pass through, Mine has a large hole where colorful birds
breathe their last.
IV. A window and a door are one, A door could be a window when shrunk a window is a door.
VI. do not go through this window head first, The only beauty in suicide is getting to see yourself drown.
VI. The moon looks like a giant disc through the panes. My mother once called it a ball of light, Shadow creator,
sponge.
VII. Can a window protect a woman’s [perceived] dignity without becoming a barricade?
VIII. The absence of a window is a void. The absence of a void is a wall. Where there is no wall, there is the exposed
bleakness of the outside world.
IX. Oh, that I should worship the effervescent beauty of this window.
Its golden plated eyes, The straight proud back of its youth.
X. The window is a reflector of light, like God, Like those angels that didn’t fall.
XI. My dreams are so window -less. The nightmares fly in like crows. The window absorbs my screams, gently.
XII. The sun is rising. The window must be smiling.
XII. It was night all day long. It was raining and it was going to sun. The window took it all Before our eyes.

If your story starts with silence and you become as heavy
as the hollow inside a snail shell, then you can be me,
perched on a fence with only two cents of hope for the hereafter.
The music is still playing but our bodies are tired of swaying.
We plug our feet into our shoes to please
the wind outside but
the street is fat with hungry boys with tired bodies.
We have never seen
the world shedding its skin, losing its color.
We unplug ourselves from our
shoes and our playgrounds patter curses on us. We sink
the leftover of what fear has taken for a morsel of food into
this box that looks like home.
Our faces take the shape of a frown. The world is
changing and we are singing anarchy to the sun.
The street is dying in silence and no boy wants
to shed his skin
to save it. The DJ is still playing our favorite
song over the radio
but my brother and I are tired of swaying. We
have never seen the world
shedding off its skin, losing its color, and becoming an orphan,
just like every other child trapped
in their boxes like home

Miracle Isowanmwen is an alumni of the department of English and Literature, University of Benin.

Again

I’m refusing to try.

So you’ll never hear me say:

I’m craving love.

1 know deep in me that I’ve made a mistake

And that

Refusing to care anymore will ease my pain.

I don’t believe

There is perfect love;

I’m ashamed of love.

So you’ll never hear me say:

I’ll try again.

Poet’s Note: Read upwards, dear reader.