self-portrait of the poet as grace’s cub
San Pham, Crane Daughter 3
"What am I, that I should stand/ so apart from my own happiness?"
—Carl Philips
Tell it this way: this cross of happiness isn't hard to bear.
hunchback of memories, I was dressed in what no one but
my mirror understood: the unrest of a palm lost in the sea-
-curl of a lover's hair —the dream I failed to reiterate but
imagined, after all. The vision says I've been happy for over
a year now —or is it six months? Apologies to this old bell
that is my heart, I slept in a bed & woke up on the nudity
of a road in which boys who possess a face as mine waved.
Praise be to God, I danced inside a silence but to the song
of my own science —o, the deep-throated hymn of survival.
who, bless be my name, am I that I should live into another
decade if not grace's cub? cheetah of grace, I' been galloping
through the furnace— green, & golden antler— mistaking it
for an open field, its crackles of fire a hymn I recited by heart.
in reality, I am a lamb —what did I know of the blade’s sigh?
I go to bed in my father's jacket & become an origami carved
by desire. I wanted to erect a silent hut, a lighthouse, a chapel —
somewhere we can all gather & give our scars new names, but
look at my hands, twin oars of this little life —a boat tipping
towards a grey moon. I lived this long kneeling at Jehovah’s gate.
Nome Emeka Patrick is a Nigerian poet. His work has been published or is forthcoming in POETRY, Narrative magazine, Granta, AGNI, TriQuarterly, West Branch, Waxwing, Poet Lore, Beloit Poetry Journal, Black Warrior Review, A Long House, and elsewhere. A Best of the Net, Best New Poets, and Pushcart Prize nominee, he emerged third place in the Frontier Poetry Award for New Poets, 2020. His manuscript We Need New Moses. Or New Luther King was a finalist for the 2019 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. He writes from Providence, Rhode Island where he is currently an MFA candidate in Poetry at Brown University. Say ‘Hello!’ on Twitter & IG @nome__patrick