Sometimes, a clear day in November marks the beginning of a new star. Then, you slice your dreams outside the kitchen window beneath a November night & smile at the beginning. Your star twinkles & I wish it would blur our distance hanging in the sky. I remember embracing your star in my prayers like a child who just found the moon & carried the spectacle of wonders in his eyes. I see you everywhere in the sky as a proof of wonders, of dreams & of the small thing giving lights, opening paths & holding talks with God.
Something You Can’t Hold
Ifeoluwa Ayandele
I heard you came for me after I left & you waited long on the shores with some purple flowers in your hands. You wore
the face of a priest at a funeral, rubbing those flowers in your palms, savoring its ardor & chanting some words—offering
a final funeral in my name. You wanted to know if I found freedom along the way, you wanted to know why I chose the river
over you, preferring the tides of the river after rain. But this is what you don’t know: I am the rain & the river that washes me away
will bring me back in musings of the night. I will become the waters that wash your feet & show you the path of how loss is something you can’t hold.
Ifeoluwa Ayandele was born in rural Ago Are, Nigeria, the son of a painter. He is a Best of the Net nominee. His work is published or forthcoming in The Shoutflower, Moon City Review, The McNeese Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Shift: A Journal of Literary Oddities, Cider Press Review, Harbor Review, Rattle, Verse Daily and elsewhere. He tweets @IAyandele.