At The Crossroads Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

In the thick nimbus
and onyx smoke of sketches
in my swollen
whirling head, I dive

too deep to float back
with the buoy
to steer me through beacons
to fish out the star
driver I'm waiting for.

Lost, sunk, plunged
into the bottom
of a deep gorge,
as I canoe through
blurred waters to fish out

a narrow face -
in an SUV, a range rover,
a short-framed car -

I cannot dig out,
or grab
with my scoop net of sketches
bawled out

over the phone to me,
as I wait in the chills
of night, my eyes only
seeing through daisy mists
of a snowing night.

I swim and swim
in an expanding pool
of wild guesses.

And stand waiting,
brows lowered
at an intersection
of flowing streets,

cars honking, as they slip
off. And I keep on
beating through
waters, as I swim with eyes

for men driving the car
sculpted out as the ride
to pick me up.

(ii)

Headlamps shot
from a distance
flood lanes and width spans
of streets bubbling.

Buzzing with tires,
as vehicles flow
through
rivers of their own
bright gold
and silver lights.

Flooding carriageways
with vehicles flowing
through yellow and gold rivers
of their headlamps,

as I look through
windscreens trying
to sculpt out
the face of the late-night
man, the driver
to give me a ride home.


How I have stood
at the crossroads flipping
over, as I swim
in my flooded head,


stretching out eyes
to match a sketch of the man
to pick me up
as time slips into late night.

(iii)

If the driver has
glided past me, without
matching
my silhouette with the schema
hurled at him
over the phone,

I'll dig a tunnel through
a cruising cold pitch night,
to catch the breath
of a fireside

in a street's hollow
to feed me with the orison
that will scoop me out
from the bottom
of a flooded gorge.