Devotion
after torrin a. greathouse
my arms bounded above my head
your left hand pinning my wrists into the soft of the bed
your right hand wanders
into the width of my desire
mimicking the crescendo of the song weighing against my breasts
into the howl of god’s name
shattering across the rapidness of your pulse
i start to count your grunts as you thrusts
i make to read your face but the shadow lingers
embracing mine in a kiss
what a dense thing to do
to turn my devotions to you in a single arc of my hips
till my world spins and the colours in my head become one: unfamiliar.
someone prays.
someone moans.
someone feigns that their god wasn’t watching from the first row.
Frida asks if he will love her on New Year’s Eve
When Frida Kahlo took her first solo trip abroad, Picasso gave her earrings, and the Louvre bought a painting. On returning home, she divorced her husband Diego Rivera, and painted “Self Portrait With Cropped Hair”.
on the eve of 1940
i imagine a restless Frida
in a satin slip
squared shoulders
once held her in a warm embrace
by the love of her life
her eyes catch the glare
of the shears as her hair
had become a noose
around the portrait of her ex-lover
cradling her scalp while he slept
what psalms does she say
as the mist in the skies clear
to
welcome a new morning?
i imagine the first chop
neck-length
long enough to save face
unwrap a love morphing into grief and guilt
knuckles deaf from clutching the shears
so fierce
as more hair fell
clumped at her feet
shoulders solemnly rocking to the new lullaby of the new wind
what does she feel as the fireworks litter the skies to break in a new morning?
Iyanuoluwa Adenle is a poet from Nigeria. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Cosmonauts Review, Blue Earth Review, 20.35 Africa, Olongo, Kissing Dynamite, Lolwe, Onejacar, Empty Mirror, African Writer, Kalahari Review, and elsewhere.