Today's poem is by Olatunde Osinaike

On Cue
        after Etheridge Knight

And now that the sun is going,
going, going, gone. Dawn, lolling
around looking larger than life.

The nine-year-old boy in me knows
the adage: if you're early, you're on
time and if you're on time, you're late.

So the boy now knows the nerve of saviors.
Maybe the nerve of never. How the day
goes just how the day comes. Somewhere,

someone is punching the clock so the boy
can dispose of dust and rinse away some
more earth in a new light. A slippery trope.

Create in me a clean heart the boy recites
and renew a right spirit within me. Years
later, only now a renewal of his temple —

the end of his lease. So here it is: head
bowed, eyes closed. The least I could
do. Prayer as a hail mary, a last ditch

effort albeit with a corroded shovel.
When paying my respects in this way,
I choose to leave behind begonias to keep

the weeds company. My relationship to faith
faltering. Locked knees and asking
who's there like a terrible knock-knock joke

without a clue of what's coming. When I look
up all I see are angels, and think this
must be the perfect time for a trust fall.

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Copyright © 2024 Olatunde Osinaike All rights reserved
from Tender Headed
Akashic Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission