by Jonathan Chibuike Ukah

I was on my way to a lonely house,
when I saw a well-suited man standing at the gate;
I didn’t know his face or why he was standing there,
but I wanted to push him aside and go into the room;
the walls were white; the door was white,
the curtains followed the walls all the way down
to where the floor was a white marble terrace.
Men and women squatted together,
as songs from invisible birds seized the air.

A folio of beauty and incandescent grace
lured me towards the house like a trance,
and I saw the manicured aura around the building,
a picturesque version of my dream mansion.
Among the people I saw crowding the house,
were those I met on my way to the house,
those I assumed were dead long before I came,
those whose children were my school friends,
my friends at school, my friends on the street.

Among those squatting on the white floor,
were also my parents and grandparents,
who died long before I reached the age of reason,
who wanted their fantasy to grow into budding flesh,
and not this lazy boy sleeping on a wet mat.
My parents shook their heads when they saw me.
my grandparents gnashed their teeth, wrung their hands;
but the spaces between them stank of ammonia,
though their eyes split the hot air between us.

Then the gateman stepped forward to meet me,
and I saw the velvet veil covering his oiled face,
but I recognised him from a previous encounter.
Young man, you’re standing beyond the blue line,
turn and leave, let your dream not involve a return,
Otherwise, this gate would not close if you stood there.
It was then that I turned to stare at the floor of the house,
and saw a blue ribbon running across the room,
all the people I saw were sitting behind the blue line.

Then, I remembered the man at the gate,
manning its front, pushing some people away,
and letting light out of the warm interior;
I stared at him, unable to put words together,
or believe that I was before the throne of broken bones,
but he shot back, You’re beyond the blue line, he said.
Another man approached the gate with grief symptoms,
and I guessed that ancient battles were about to rage,
I saw my spirit leave my body, taking on the high road. 

All that I knew and saw began to return to me.
My mother was waving her hands in the air,
she was squatting behind the blue line.
My father beckoned to me with gritted teeth;
he too squatted with my mother behind the blue line,
my grandparents shaking their heads for the umpteenth time,
stared at the receding blue line and shook their heads.
All my friends cheered me onward, though I retreated.
They were all standing or sitting behind the blue line.
How grace thrashed me in the teeth 
where my redemption had been a battle of the dead.

---

Jonathan Chibuike Ukah lives in the United Kingdom. His poems have been featured in Lucky Jefferson Literary Magazine, The Pierian, Propel Magazine, Atticus Review, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets and elsewhere. He won the Alexander Pope Poetry Award in 2023. He was the Editor’s Choice Prize Winner of Unleash Lit in 2024, the Second Poetry Prize Winner at the Streetlights Poetry Prize in 2024 and Winner of the Poet of the Month December-January 2025 at the Literary Shark Poetry Contest.