Pad Of A Baby Girl Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

I went to sleep on a bed
as smooth as a sea under
a ceiling of pearl and cotton sky

shifting to the silver wall
of a sinking horizon rising back

to jump to a cerulean height.
Diving with pale branch-waving trees of air.

And patches of lapis. The ceiling
rose further to daisy flowers
erasing dim specks trailed by cobwebs

of clouds breathing out grayish
passerine birds sailing
towards cream clouds of moths

and petals in a feathery air
melting into wallowing flat transparent
plastic and strands of razor-thin latex.

(ii)

A ceiling garden of white roses
and showers of wisteria poured
and splashed sprinkles, balls of stamens

rolling over pollen-coated sheets
sticking to thumb phalanxes
and finger creases stroking me

with specks and cotton balls
of fingers and baby wrist creases
of your first grip stapling my hands to rails
of your bed widening its arms

Until sky films of a bed sheet
engulfed me into star-filled sheets
of sleep that sailed me in a ship

across an ocean as inflated as foam lifting
a light mattress to breezy hairs
on your eyebrows and eyelashes
stroking me, as you wriggled off from my hands.

(iii)

And the ceiling's sky tumbled
to the floor with clouds
of throw blankets that had settled
on my mile-drifted toes and feet.

My pillow cases and flowered
pieces sailing on drifting pillows flipped
over to a smooth earth of rugs
and melted into fallen clouds rising back
to thicken the room with your stroking hands.