Timing

I'm awake at 2.30 am. It's quiet off-course.

The silence is yearning to be pierced by any sharp sound.

I'm thinking what to compare the heart to.

The heart is a drum. You get the rhythm you desire.

It stays silent when untouched. No, the heart is a mirror.

You only get the reflection of yourself.

So I see the patterns of myself in you to your surprise

I could love so easily. But I feel it's the timing.

Imprint

I run into the forest

and cut woods for you.

It's summer.

So you have no use for them.

But I note that

while cutting the woods.

So when winter

comes, you can think of me.

Poetry by

Emmanuel

Jakpa.

Emmanuel Jakpa is a poet living in Ireland. He studied at the University of Lagos, and the University of Iowa. He obtained an MA from Waterford Institute of Technology. His poetry has been published in over 400 on-line and print journals, and an Irish-Canadian anthology, Landing Places, Edison Literary Review, and the African American Review. He was nominated for the 2009 Pushcart Prize by The Swarthmore Literary Review, The Taylor Trust, and Jack Magazine. And He received the Yeats' Pierce Loughran Scholar Award in 2008.