Jonathan Chibuike Ukah lives in the UK. His poems have appeared in NDQ, The Pierian, Boomer Literary Magazine, Strange Horizons, Kingsman Quarterly and elsewhere. He won the Voices of Lincoln Poetry Contest 2022 and his poetry collection was a top 6 finalist of the African Diaspora Award 2023.
Lend Me a Shoulder to Stand On
If you lend me your shoulder to stand on
I would come with a lightness of heart,
a body made of wool and water,
a soul invisible, a spirit inviolable;
I would wear gold shoes on my feet
and diamond gloves in my hands,
that I may convey to you the sacred pads
awarded to those who create eternity;
I know that I will grow taller than the sky;
my head hitting the sky’s ceiling,
the migratory clouds, the silver lining of stars,
on which birds perch but collapse in the sun.
The moon would not know that we are one,
seeing my head and eyes popping into the orbit,
but Heaven would serve as a crown witness
of a time when the earth turns on its head for good.
I know that your shoulders are closer to light
than mine would ever dare to be;
even if I try to plug wings into my shoulders,
it is not my destiny to carry myself like air.
Each of us is here to play a part in history
that confronts one another in life,
in the depths in which we often sink;
and if we do not become broken to obedience,
we have made destiny and time a blatant liar.
Come, show and lower your shoulders now,
that I may climb to bestow on you the grace
following the reason, you are standing here.
The sun and the stars will be witnesses today
that I coerced you into keeping to your time.