Learn a New Language
Your joy runs into peace into happiness
into laughter before it becomes a highway
without a stop sign - the shiny black asphalt
and the breeze caressing your face teach you
that fate is not ugly everyday
A song strikes your tongue like a string
and the vibrations say happiness say joy
say a soul that has mastered all the languages
that loss can speak. You are a man who
can speak loss but prefers to sing the songs
that stick to your tongue when you travel
on this asphalt road.
Before songs started sticking to your tongue
you tried wrapping vowels from the language
of loss into the flowers you took to her
grave - until she visited you in your sleep with
all your flowers and all the vowels in one arm
and told you to just learn another language.
Now you do not have to hide vowels
in flowers to know that there are languages
where good grammar is only drowning
in sticky songs until you can no longer
float
Sometimes you walk by men whose loss
has broken into crippled syllables
whose letters might never stand together
again and you say learn a new language in
her glassy voice as if you had stuffed your
throat shut with silk handkerchiefs
Copyright © Sobur Adedokun | Year Posted 2017
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