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 jkarn209@gmail.com.
