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Today's poem is by Saddiq Dzukogi

A Pond of Alcohol
       

I am tired of what my love
is doing to your body

So many stitches later
two kids, each in your belly

like a new moon working
into meaningful whole.

your anguish butterflies

in the palms I lost to prayers

a moon takes your strength
c and forms, opening beer bottles,

until my stomach turns a pond
of alcohol. I can pretend I am pre

and wrap my eyes in the grief
of a night that begets a moon

that says: look,
I'm so close to the sea

I can touch myself in water
pain is that physical, I can touch it

in the utter blue walls of regret
the sky says it is a faithful warrior

looking over the water, all the moons
have gone missing

grief is the stale food in my mouth.
the blind minstrel that sees through a pleat

the road to hurt a body.
lanes full of fury

Like a burning village
the body is magnificent in its ash.



Copyright © 2017 Saddiq Dzukogi All rights reserved
from New Orleans Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission

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