/romeo oriogun

Beach House

for Monday Osadiaye

It is evening now, the decanter is empty. Your faded pictures on walls stare at me, belittling death.

Winds from open windows begin song. Outside, parrots gossip tattoos of dead sailors. I hear a freedom song, fable of men jumping boat, saving a drowning girl.

We are capable of miracles, says the Jinn of water. Where are you? I whisper. I walk out the door, keys jangle my pockets.

Before me the sea spread wide arms, what is awake is beauty, what is dead is beauty. The night is sober, awaiting the outturn of my pockets. I walk toward water, crows are here, singing softly.

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Romeo Oriogun was born in Lagos, Nigeria. He is the author of Sacrament of Bodies (University of Nebraska Press, 2020). His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, McNeese Review, Bayou, Brittle Paper, and others. He currently is an MFA candidate for poetry at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he received the John Logan Prize for Poetry.