Liturgy for Boys who Bloomed before the World was Ready by CP Nwankwo
32 lines
Issue 8, Summer 2025
Out of salt water. Out of moss stitched with longing.
Out of the wood. We would begin again:
world without end. We lit the romance,
not like couples do, but like stars from our
missing days scoring the night.
Somewhere in Noah’s ark, we stretch out olive hands,
like doves wet with green stalks of dew.
Salem in our hands, evergreen in heaven’s rafters—
sun of righteousness, a banquet of blood.
The quiet war we never spoke of:
how the heart wants what is broken.
Quicklime. Cherry warlocks. Celsius burning.
It was silence we built our fears with,
and we drowned the Tigris in this miracle of finding
awe in fleeting things. If the skylight is here,
then you are there.
‘I’ stays beveled, like Herod’s blade.
Maybe still naked, still a little feral.
But the blessing of two Black boys is the vine:
Primordial. Love-lettered. Atypical.
Peace, first sprinkled,
then poured; tabula rasa. Everything reminding us
of light. Of each small lily among thorns.
Of every soft animals within us, crossing the ghost
of masculinity. In tidal belts
of holding through violet storms,
our bodies stood without borders.
Tell me, gently: how many times have trees lost
their love of shedding poems?
boys in scattered silos, breaking free.
Butterfish. Gold heart. Slow river. Sinking deep.
Where even water learns the shape of boys.
