hay

yes to the light 
turning, delicate summer—

language of wonder, 
bone of miracle;

I believe in love
I believe in longing—

somewhere a boy bangs 
his fist against a wall—begging 

magic to open 
up; what does it mean

to be lost in the light 
of another—to let the rain 

touch the stamen
& stem—what does it mean to be

beloved—to be ashamed
of nothing, to come to the bright river

of be—
where did it touch you,

the bad light of winter, where, 
my deer, did it not;

I touch the river where the bone’s 
broken, where the ache is not mute,

hay in the cricket’s 
burning chest.

Ernest O. Ògunyemi is a staff writer at Open Country Mag. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Joyland, Tinderbox, Sierra Nevada Review, Journal Nine, The Indianapolis Review, Down River Road, Capsule Stories, No Tokens, The West Review, The Dark Magazine, Mud Season Review, Agbowó, Isele, and in the anthology 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry III. He is the curator of The Fire That Is Dreamed of: The Young African Poets Anthology.