Free Verse Poem by Jonathan Ukah
I cannot say how much light
is reflected in your body
each time I look at you;
it’s not a dream to think of you like that
as though the sky is your garden
and you are light-blowing flowers
floating over the watering meadows;
you are wearing this changed image,
where beauty oozes from your smile;
when you deny it, you crumble in my esteem
what can I say to touch your heart,
when you are always looking elsewhere,
crowded by yourself, alone, all alone,
when the sun streaming on your face is dark,
when you seek constellations staring at you,
when you wear your body like a winter solstice.
Look, I believe in the poignancy of miracles,
the magic smoke rising from your eyes,
tender, the fingers of the moon, the kiss of flowers,
where silence is like dancing in the dew,
in the mist that covers the ruins,
in the joy shot by the gun of your heart
when you are not looking elsewhere.
Laugh more, dance more, smile more,
it’s my interpretation of summer in your eyes.
Jonathan Chibuike Ukah is a Pushcart-nominated poet living in the United Kingdom. His poems have been featured in Unleash Lit, The Pierian, Propel Magazine, Atticus Review, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets, and elsewhere. He won the third Prize in the Voices of Lincoln Poetry Contest in 2024 and the Alexander Pope Poetry Award in 2023.
