Chubby-Cheeked Baby Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Breathe me in with your
eyes' twinkles, when your
switched-on smiles
spin and crawl with soft sponges
spreading dawn's foam

on the melting wax
of your cool splashed dripping
bubbling face on cotton
blobs of your palms in mine,

as they bounce and punch
and pounce on the corner
of my lips stretched out

to the melting moon's arc
behind a hooting train on
smooth rails to a new world.

(ii)

Draw me in with an aperture
into your sipping laugh,

when hearth-popping times
answer your screams flushed
out at my pumped face.

With wheeled strokes riding
on my face from cheek
to temple across the hills
and valleys of my smile, only
your rolled-out and rolled-in grin

outnumber those stars
hanging from a high ceiling
above a cloud's clothing.

(iii)

Breathe out a grin. Breathe
with your eyes. And your
arrowed tongue, pointed

like your finger-poked
touch soaking my palms
with your giggling love.
O lake of drools
bathing me in spring waters

by your cot climbing to my bed,
when your whimper
brushes the strings of an alto note

swung to a high-pitched
snivel, and a chorus
worded by stars and the highest sun

drifts closest to the sun
lighting your face with mine.

(iv)

Grip my finger with your
cotton fist and powdery palm
for a snore to ring bells

for a late night's journeyed ear
behind the warm screen
of the soft back of your hand

built with the pillows
I lie on to listen
to a river flowing in quiet babbles

with you as you sleep
to turn on cascades of my sleep

armed with a tuned-in jump
to my feet for a bow at your feet.