Uche Nduka

IN THAT NEBULA

It starts
with a hostage situation
and goes backward
into emeralds.

These are dreams
we have
when we're scared
of being left behind.

Silence. A hungry cat
has the floor.
(Valuing you from a distance)

Sparklers, firelight.
(Appreciation that goes the distance)

FROM THE SANCTUARY

Red grapes.
Do they remember
the music
of stringed skeletons?
A fifth hand
without which I can't
write a line.
To slip through
a mirror
and string agonies
into a syllable.
A loud or mute
whetstone. Pearls
that shudder.
Footsteps of asymmetrical dawn.
Granite of grace.
Three sails of a black mirror.

MIX TAPE ELSEWHERE 

When you realize
this is not a drone shot.
Inkland's underland.
Nothing forgets
the rockfall.

All he wanted
was for it to
                    bloom & blur.

Rasta pasta, angel hair pasta
megafauna, hidden menu.

Overcandled in the attic.

In the blue transparency
I warm soup with your flags.

Gongs long for rubies
they once inhabited.

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Uche Nduka is an itinerant poet-professor presently living in New York City. Author of 13 volumes of poems of which the latest are SCISSORWORK (2022) and BAINBRIDGE ISLAND NOTEBOOK (2023), his work has been translated into German, Italian, Arabic, Finnish, Turkish, and Romanian. He presently teaches at Eugene Lang New School and CUNY-Queens College.