Guest Poem: Larondo by Tunji Olalere

It was Newton who told the apple why it fell.
How it was shot off the betrothed’s head…

Flavour’s Ada.
Hips the ears of elves
Trapped a man in an Archimedean Spiral,
Reading his palms; aligning the planets.

Wizzy’s teenage tenor
Ached with the melancholy of forbidden registers―
Lisa. Pretty Lisa. Mona Lisa.
What have you not done?

Harmattan’s haze lifts off my shoulders.
Haloed by your smile, numb on my knees
Let me have the first stone.

Let me take you by the hand
To the maiden crouched on Midas’ grave.
Let the fountain prophesy.

Let me sew you a constellation on its aquamarine―
Two dragon flies locked in a sacred dance,
Petrified into Diamonds. Immortal.

I have Thunderbolts for you,
For your thighs when they part.
Come, let us conceive Dawn in this lattice of lightning.

Baby Oku,
Tongue of the gecko,
You lick me like fire.

I want to finger-paint you with moonlight.
I want to give my name to a meridian inside you.
I want…

Let me kiss you…

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Tunji Olalere, a doctor-poet, lives in Lagos.