From A Cliff's Floor Poem by Felix Bongjoh

Rocks flipped over, tumbled
to breaking slabs. The sill jumped
over a flying frame,
sashes and jambs, dust.

I hang from the bottom
of a cliff by a creek
lighting up daylight with
a thick cloak of night.

I hang from the floor
of a rift, two jagged walls
closing in, tightening

the nuts of night into
a blackbird's scrawl of a tail,
a feather of a cloud -
a midnight thunderstorm.

When life's fire thins out
into a notch, a flame
shooting out a sword's tongue,

I'll bow and stoop to lick it
so a spurting drop rolls
into the lips of a candlelight,

the globe-eyed dove winking
at a red butterfly's hue, as
a river croons with a snipe's song.

Let the bird open its nest
into a garden, a tree's chest:

Life whistles. A wind whimpers
still flying with a falcon's wings

flapped over sword-cutting
waves by the edge of a garden
of trees wearing piked hats.