River In A House Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

When will a soft dawn sun rise
over River Colorado
running through canyon walls

in this rental house
we're still packing into?

A blue vinyl runner carpet links
the front entrance door
with the back limping staircase

and gleams with sun jumping down
from a yawning attic.

Its narrow stretch lifts and floats me,
as I walk through a strait
murmuring with my shoes'

rhythmic tap, the drum
pacing me back and forth
and in curves and ellipses
from a staircase to the end of its width,

where a wall rises
with stiff and bulging muscles
to make way for a staircase

to jumping bedrooms
on various raised slabs of floors.

(ii)

The vinyl flows with tramping
and tiptoeing soles
like a murmuring glittering stream

carrying beaming sparks
from socks and shoes and studs,

as I float on it to the garage,
where my car takes over
the croon and rattle and crackle

of a day with the clanging
and clinking of metal panels
along a corridor leading

to a garden of an indoor
dining area, where ferns
and fiddle-leaf figs

dwarfed by the raised wigged heads
of spinning areca palms.

(iii)

Basking in the green
flowery shadows,
a scintillating table rises

with silverware every dinner time,
when cascades of shoes
land on the shores of a table
stretching across a layer

of indoor sky linking whispering
sparrows from trees

rustling in the wind
with sealed-mouth birds
on a well-embroidered tablecloth.

(iv)

Canyon piles of suitcases
and trunks lined and leaned
against walls squeeze us,

narrowing our walking
lanes into slithering
spaces down to each doorway.

They also dig out wall
holes and steps

on creeping plywood backs
onto which toes and heels fit,
galloping out to a cliff,

where a wooden deck
jumps off to a lawn,
from which we reach out

to our indoor canyon walls
with the sailing hands

of legless peeks hurled to croon
along River Colorado
in the stretchy living room
screaming out for a soft sun.