Coming Out
The woman on the bar stool knows your body
is a journey into songs,
the door into a moth flirting with fire,
which means there's a pretty boy
living under your skin.
I do not wish to come to you
but I can't help it,
you look drunk like a man
seeking a way out of himself
or a way into the beginning of his voice.
The city knows how to kill a man like you
and on the face of some men
I can see you burning.
Tonight, you take your first step into music,
saying your body knows how to beat a path
through hell and back,
saying angels do not die in song
you are daring like a throat accepting the fire of tequila.
Across you in a dark booth, I want to scream
silently. Do not dance,
do not give in to the wild beat flowing through your heart.
But you are dancing like a boy drowning inside
his blood and all my body
can do is pray your soul into a bird's wings
and hope the wind call you home.
Do you know the first thing about fire?
Have you seen a mouth calling God
only to find a body rising in smoke?
The city does not want
to hear your song flowing through a bird,
they don't want you dancing in the light.
Come into the dark before a man
greets your body with violence.
Come into dark, let me sing
the night through your body
like a man learning how to worship God
in a strange land.
Copyright Credit: Romeo Oriogun, "Coming Out" from Sacrament of Bodies. Copyright © 2020 by Romeo Oriogun. Reprinted by permission of University of Nebraska Press.
Source: Sacrament of Bodies (University of Nebraska Press, 2020)