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What unrest do we share
what dream, what quest?
what face of you comes
to me in my day sleep?
I am worn-out from re-entries
into a portal wearied by our
yoked and un-yoked desires.
didn’t I proclaim: to say
I only once loved you is to say
the cosmos, too, only once existed?
Joda, what a name, from the
tired boughs of a love song,
disarming me like my failure
to write an epic love poem.
what dream did I commit
when I first bore you into
a poem? that you must re-
surrect so often and ever,
so near and far — stop these
purrings; stop your second comings,
if you won’t confess this poet
To his salvation.
Carl Terver is a Nigerian essayist and poet, and he is the founding editor of Afapinen. He is the author of the poetry chapbook For Girl at Rubicon. His essays have been published in Praxis, The Republic, and The Question Marker.