A Little Worm Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

In the swirling wind
of waiting
in a cave stretched out
into a kilometer tunnel,

whirlwinds brewed
and harnessed
in the waiting room

by dudes carrying
on scorched withered faces

funnel-web and brown
widow spiders
crawling with grumbles
on their wrinkles

grown into multi-limbed
flashed frowns -
venomous scorpions.

(ii)

From the tornado
of an out-of-place
brush and crash
building up a volcano

to explode with a boom
from a butterfly-winged banter
spilling ruby blood
and rivers of scarlet ink,

I discovered the nurse,
a gem of a lady
split out from the sapphire
shell of a ballooned moonstone,

a soft malleable
plastic face swimming
in its splashed
spring water flowing

and stretching breezily,
as she spoke,

digging with the prickly
fruit hands of a gaze
into your eyes

to draw you closer
without a scratch.

(iii)

She spoke and broke
into brick walls
with only the flapped feathers
and wings of a dove,

its floating after-feathers
running through
her sprinkled stare
rolled at you in a flash,

but pickily screened
and preened
by a light gauze-held
flattened patch of cotton.

(iv)

She brandished
a smooth polished mirror,
a twilight
of splayed-and-spread sun

lighting on her cheeks
petal beams
and a little crawling worm
of a smile

to shine without
burning with smoky flames.

The smile left only
cream and lace ashes
from gold embers

to breathe in clouds
of withered flowers

breathing out crowns of sun
in an autumn garden.