If I Could See Far

If I could see how far you carry your body,
my life would be one long, endless prayer,

When it can no longer stand this evil lurking,
head high and shoulder high with the light,

How much price you are ready to pay,
when your heart has broken into lumps,

Shedding the blood streaming from your bones;
if I could see in the cold mirror of the sky

What troubled tomorrow holds in store for you
or if tomorrow is among the cold calamities

Whose end has become the needle in my eye;
if I could toss my cards on the sliding ground,

Or watch the crystal glass for a poignant prophecy
into the colours of your night and day

And the contour decorations of your afternoon;
if I could ask questions like a crying child

But receive answers like a grieving adult;
if growing up means reaching the salty stars

Where your destiny sprawls like a lush landscape
or a droll drawing by an amateur best artist;

If all I could do was search the gallery globe
for a glimpse of glory packed on a solitary ship,

Which sails on the Atlantic Ocean in the morning
and is about to anchor in the evening.

When your eyes are yellow, your heart is red,
then let the sparrows sing, the squirrels dance,

And let the seagulls squeeze their bodies for grief
If there’s no God to order your life for a turnaround.

Image by John from Pixabay

​Jonathan Chibuike Ukah's bio: I​ have been featured in Propel Magazine, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets, Atticus Review, Tab: The Magazine of Poetry and Poetics, The Silk Literary Magazine Sublimation and elsewhere. I won The Alexander Pope Poetry Award for The Pierian in 2023 and the Unleash Creatives’ Editor’s Choice Prize in Poetry in 2024, the Editor’s Choice of Panoply Zine in 2024, the Second Poetry Prize Winner of Streetlight Literary Magazine in 2024. I was shortlisted for the Minds Shine Bright Poetry Prize in 2024. My poetry collection, I Blame My Ancestors published by Kingsman Quarterly in 2024, was the Second Runner-up at the Kingsman Quarterly Poetry Slam in 2024.