OF A LITTLE GOD

after kaon suh & sylvia plath

the beast in my belly
closes every door,
like drowning laughter
in a sauna. he has many names and none.
the sealess fish stutters
every story i give him, gasping for words that do not exist,
while the tall man in my head brings pails of pearly water
to fill up the bottomless well, sisyphean and sallow,
muddled with every acre of regret i keep under my floorboards—
every flesh-borne lightning bolt fashioned from old fear, the restless steel gone
and replied with a tall echo.

49 tottering carnations, headless as the air, heavy as
a horse in a gun shop, snared around my shoulders like a dreadful cloak.
a slow river travels beneath my eyelids,
unwinding the clock—phosphenes tracing the hours
of your absence. dusk settles on my chest,
and i sport it like a second skin,
a fog curling around my bones.
it is a silence that demands,
but never offers, forgiveness.

i am a naked moon. i offer no light of my own to cast
into the heavy wheel outside my window, starved
as it is. the sadness is its own to hold.
an angel says my name twice, like trembling prayer,
and the little marrow scored
within me keeps repeating the same covenant:

i am immortal wound, i bleed away.

---

Yishak Yohannes Yebio, Washington D.C. - USA ✯

“Yishak Yohannes Yebio is the current youth poet laureate of Washington D.C. and advocate for everything hidden in the dark. He is currently heading off on new adventures and new starts, accepting everything that is waiting to find him."