Who says this city is not a religion?
Come outside, walk with me.
See the tall buildings steeped in
night. The black-blue,
starless Pitaquan sky. The
colonnade of gold streetlights.
And black glass. And cold.
And all the many different ways
I have ached to be whole. Look,
the behemoth flyover.
Look, the milk cathedral. Look,
the building stuck between
the ruin of worship and teeth.
Because is this not what love is—
to be ruined, to be worshipped?
How the body, like the relationship,
always starts out fresh, naive,
always looks like it would live.
First, we were made 200 feet tall.
First, the boy was 20, was alive
on the motorcycle. And the tree
was just a tree. The deer,
just a deer. And our mouths had
not yet said the ugly things
that could never disappear.
All of a sudden, this death, winged,
swift, and blinding. This grinning
bruise, this triumphant blood.
And is it not fitting, is it not
tragically fitting?
That it is the same hands
you loved, that destroys you.
Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe
Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe, Swan X, is a budding poet from Port Harcourt, Nigeria. He has been published in The Cloudscent Journal, Serotonin, Isele, The Dawn Review, Poetry Sango-Ota, Poetry ColumnNND amongst others. He is the winner of the 2024 Kukogho Iruesiri Samson Poetry Prize, co-winner of the 2024 Poetry ColumnNND Chapbook Award, the 2024 Folorunsho Editor’s Prize for Poetry and a finalist for both the 2024 Kofi Awoonor Poetry Prize and the 2024 Dawn (Review) Prize for Poetry. You can find him listening to his favorite singer Lana del Rey, or writing poetry. He tweets @mesomaccius.