We hold with utmost urgency
The worship of our God begins
with two bodies leaning in close enough
just to say specifically,
“I am drawn only to you
and I reach towards you alone”.
We hold with utmost urgency.
Somewhere in between the lengthy conversations,
a prayer is being passed
from breath to breath
and God knows we need His grace
sufficient and large.
Sufficient and transcendent.
Sufficient and overdone.
To love a boy as reckless as July Storms
I will write you poems about how
the moon hangs low
when my mother is ironing her last
round of laundry for the night.
Her humming,
her sneezes,
calling on God upon her clumsiness.
She says to chase the long trail of ghosts
of midnight after loss,
you have to grieve twice as hard
and your sorrow will birth sensations
bright and full like the moon.
That to love a boy
as reckless as July storms,
you have to avail your body,
bare and however incomplete,
at the entry points
of abysses and furnaces;
it’s the wanting that swallows you whole.
Even now,
I hear your comfort words reach for my tension and
think I should pray.
It’s your mercy that holds my body
pressed leniently against yours
time and time again.
Biography
Naomi Waweru (she/her) is inspired by love, vulnerability, the yearning of bodies to be free in their connection and has an eye for tradition and culture. Her writings present an adoration for the body. She portrays it as your first sanctuary. She has works on and forthcoming on Merak magazine, a voice from far away webzine, Ghost Heart Literary Journal, Kalahari Review, Poems for the Start of the World Anthology, Ampleremains, Afroliterary journal, Overheard Magazine and The African Writers Review. Reach her on Twitter @ndutapoems and Instagram @_ndutapoems.