Two Poems
by Brian Gyamfi
To My Friend in New Orleans
Ahead of the grassland must be fairer cows
where a bush of cosmic signs constellates
into a gazelle or an impala. My friend in New Orleans,
it is not enough to love the landscape
we must despise the famine too. It has been
a year and no letter from you has arrived save this:
I turn on sunlight for laughing eyes
and follow white roosters to the waters.
My friend, can you see me walking by the river
where the fish reminisce on rocks?
I vow to mend the moss and wash the grass.
Elegy
A man hurries through the city
with his hands covering his mouth.
He runs and his eyes swell.
Out of his mouth jumps a lion.
The lion turns into a sheep.
The sheep turns into a duck.
The duck’s beak opens
and out jumps the sun.
The sun melts
and molds into a hand.
The hand picks up a needle
which came from the man in the city.
The hand joins the needle
becoming a gloved fist.
The gloved fist turns into a man.
The man becomes the city.
The city shifts into a sun.
The sun burns the grass.
The sun burns the land.
The man’s hand stinks of sun.
Brian Gyamfi is a Ghanaian-American writer from Texas. He is a recipient of two Hopwood Awards, the Michael R. Gutterman Award, and a finalist for the Oxford Poetry Prize and the Poetry International Prize. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from UT Austin and is currently a Zell Fellow at the University of Michigan.