There Are More / No Beautiful Things Than Chantal
(After reading: 1st John 4:18)
I
On the other hand / you were like the traffic / signs that keep / warning us about the swinging kitchen door
a boy spelled the name / Chantal wrongly on / his tongue & still fights to pronounce it
sometimes / he thinks / the sea ends in her body
sometimes he tried to trap the sunlight in his shirt pocket
the sea upgraded / itself into 2019 version
II
beside her portrait / what else of her is alive, my mother asked?
by nature her voice is allowed to be alive / to grow /
to love / to be called beautiful
the rain ran around / the house naked / sweating from heat
a woman sweeps the / Earth from the street into the sidewalk
she teaches you how / to love things that don’t love you
how to love the sea / that left you standing on the shore bare feet / picking seashells
how to lick your blood off your hand when you /
slice your finger instead of the fruit
III
this idea of loving something without / loving another things is a sham
you don’t have to arrange your body like piano keys / when I trace my fingerprints from your bones
——just sit; let’s pray
my addiction to something is never wrong / my addiction to love is a wind
caught in a cobweb / her addiction to love must be out of reach children
Jeremy T. Karn is a 23 year old poet from Monrovia, Liberia. His poems have been published in Kalahari review, Praxis Magazine, Odd Magazine, The African Writers and others. He can be reached through his email [email protected].
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