Caleb Femi

---

---

under a veil of sparked lighters

Even when the music has me
glass lunged and slimy with joy,
i think of you and spark my flint above
the canopy of hands.
The elegy ascends       my signal
that I once knew a marvel.

The first shoobs we went to
they could smell the daylight on our skin
shell toes, Evisu jeans, New Era caps,
all in black like Narm youts should.
Brittle like sales-rack hangers.
Behind enemy lines in Blue Borough,
we nearly died for nyash if it weren’t for Lala.

My gut tells me that you are here,
in the hemisphere of the party
where spirits dwell ––
you’ve never been the type
to miss a lit shoobs.

---

---

---

---

CALEB FEMI is the author of POOR (2020). His second book The Wickedest will be published in 2024.