the lies we lay in

It's just poetry, it won't bite

Emmanuel Stephen Ogboh’s most recent poem to appear here was “Because We Came From the Same Cocoon” (October 2019).

the lies we lay in
By Emmanuel Stephen Ogboh

along came the cliff-edge-sharp line of divide

and i was an empty train,

pumping thick black smoke over

fields of wheat and swamps of bamboo,

knocking over scrawny scarecrows and

swearing to insouciant birds that

I don’t miss you . . .

and you, an unmanned ship,

searing schools of salmons

clearing gatherings of sharks

with your rusty—yet steady—anchor

drawing ripples and icicles on uncharted seas

“I’m free like a bird,” you sang.

but the birds don’t believe you—or your song.

i was fleeing.

you were coursing.

last night,

when the goddesses of truth

built a hanging bridge, we met—

and the butterflies were still there.

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