& after many lives—you, your life, that is: all the many selves
you’ve laid claim to, when all the while to lay claim to one is to
relinquish the other, others, I mean―I don’t know; others which you were
& now may have to―bird in hand, hand outstretched, I release into
the wind―
let go by becoming fingers, the selves being air, meaning
you have to know what it’s like to be vacant, & to live your life like that,
the place everyone leaves―that’s it, that’s
my life. I have reached that point I, now, think I’m lucky enough
to get to, & should be grateful for, as in the gratitude of the rescued―
yes, I am the rescued; that point where, at last, blank as water,
I know when to stop trying, & agony is simply agony: raw, red; & being
lost is being nothing else, means no more, than being
lost, unfindably―now grateful, grateful as I let go, let go
of the reins.
Stanley Princewill McDaniels is a Nigerian Poet and 2016 Ebedi International Writers’ Residency fellow. His works appear or are forthcoming on African Writer, Lunaris Review, Kalahari Review, Praxis Magazine, Bakwa Magazine, Bombay Review, Deepwater Literary Journal, and The Shore Poetry. He is a Review Correspondent at Praxis Magazine.