Chasing Wonder

by Omodero David Oghenekaro

Alessio Soggetti

Oftentimes I don’t get enough of the magic, swift in its momentary appearing, in the bright little things I behold. Above me on this blessed morning, the slumbering sky opens its mouth, yawning into the dreams of men, breathing upon the silence that hangs untainted — a dizzying enchantment of nature. Oftentimes I am more alive in my loneliness than I am in the company of friends. All my life I’ve sought for a love as sonorous as the first song that endured in my heart, building for itself a raft, sailing, eternally, down the quiet stream of my blood. The sky, pregnant with light, bids its time; the swifts nesting in the eaves, break into song as the moment stretches into more fabrics of loneliness in my hands. I think of what to do with all this swaddling loneliness; stitch them, perhaps, into lyrical garments of song? Or let the flame of longing burn through them — wisps of smoke carving out the outlines of an imaginary lover? Once, adrift in sleep, I caught her face in the mist of a dream — jeweled eyes revealing all fifteen moons whose milky terrors I survived on my way to the valley of her body. Her tongue entwined in mine, the triggers of my first wet dream — a delight so mysteriously sensual the body quakes in its wake like fish hauled from water.

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Omodero David Oghenekaro is a young writer from Delta State, Nigeria. He’s a member of the Frontiers Collective and currently reads for Frontier Poetry. His work has appeared/ is forthcoming in Strange Horizons, Lolwe, Brittle Paper and elsewhere. Reach him on twitter@davidomodero