Chinedu Gospel, Frontier IV

Baptism

                             I initiate my body into the river.
                             Baptizand, willing & incapable of
harm. & stranger to cataclysm. I,
baptism. I, baptist. Flooded &
                              ark. I learned to pull strings out
                              of my palms, when I’m lonely. It
was how light crept into the
sudden eclipses in my tongue.
                                All I said—became. Except that
                                the memories didn’t tame their fangs.
I chopped my verbs into flowers &
spidered every petal with webs. It was
                                  how I practiced the art of forgetting.
                                  Everything I leaned on, suffered
a cold on their feet, including me.
But, I’ve learned that trembling
                                   is the easiest way to reach the edge.
                                   So, like glass resonating to the
climax of a piano’s song, I reach
the brink of despair—delicate
                                   & un-eyed. Yet, I do not plummet
                                   into shards. I emerge. Like fire from
ring. Isn’t it true that a thing is broken
& broken & broken. Until it can no
                                    longer be broken? I swear, this body
                                    never used to speak wreckage. At
least, not with those fingers that touched
it neshly. The softest thing is silence.
                                     & how it easily bursts open into
                                     bedlam. Into bruises. Into fissures.
To rupture a body, contain it with
so much love & then, never return.
                                       You’d see how presence outpaces
                                       touch. How all we want is to be in peril.
I dip my head into the church
of a river. Emerge as a dove—clean.
                                         But incapable of halos.
                                         Of glory. Of songs.

CHINEDU GOSPEL, FRONTIER IV is an emerging Nigerian poet. He plays chess and tweets @gonspoetry. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in various online and print magazines as Hoax Publications, Fiyah Magazine, Foglifter Press, Agbowo arts, Habour Review and Blue Marble Review.