Angels

By ​Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe

Because he was just a boy,
 
he held it in his hands, eyes lowered into that
of a lover.
 
He regards it, curious, like a doctor regarding
a patient sick,
 
patient about to die. Patient standing at
Gibraltar, overlooking
 
that great ocean of black. Before the jump.
Before the unending
 
worlds of darkness. The boy tastes power
harsh as metal.
 
Realizes life is nothing but a symptom of
what his fingers clutch.
 
His fingers—death. And then the jump. And
then he spools,
 
he unspools. The calculator a black heart
coming apart.
 
Steel separating from plastic and thermoset.
 
Bone separating from bone, from blood and
flesh. Chrome
 
batteries and grey buttons spilling onto the
floor like teeth.
 
This is what he does, what I do, what we have
all done.
 
Hold the things we say we love the most in
the worlds collapsing
 
in our palms. And watch them crumble,
watch them unravel,
 
into a bright scarlet. 

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Ode

By ​Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe

​To Lord Huron uncocooning in my ears. To my dear mother, and her voice drowning in the music. To my immediate brother on the pale-lit sand, reenacting my fall. & the laughter white on their faces. How even half-cruel mockery can be sweet. To the injury I wear on my knees. Is this scarlet thing pride? Joy? The proof that I have lived? To hot saltwater in wounds. To their sizzling and itching. & the miracle of healing. & the mystery of glistening rented flesh returning into scars. & scars returning into skin. Skin brown, brewed from so much agony. Nothing left after the baptism of fire, as if nothing had ever lived. To my second brother dark and beautiful like night. To my sister dancing in the dim moonlight. & the epiphany. & the apotheosis in motorcycle headlights. Her, frozen, white light spilling everywhere like gasoline. You could, even from this distance, see the wisps of her hair. So much joy foaming in the heart. To music that tastes of wildernesses and metal. To music that tastes of heart-wrenching melancholy. To my father worlds away on the unforgiving ocean. To his calls every night. To the editors that have held me by the neck. To the editors that have hung me by the neck. To the editors that have told me I would die. & I would live. & my days doused in night. & my nights doused in eclipses. & this family I am so grateful to be in. & Lord Huron ending. Look, even now, I have wings. 

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Eden,

By ​Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe

"We did it for the right reasons."
                                             —Lana del Rey

​And every afternoon we were always on fire. Our breaths hot in our lungs like gasoline. The sun, merciless and golden. Such ephemeracy—burning just for the sake of burning. For the fun. For the ashes. For the triumph that followed after the heat. That beauty. That wondrous miracle of wings. Wings carnal, by fire, enfleshened. Afterwards, the wind always came cool against us, as if to wake. Our organs and bodies returning once more into our skins. And you could, once again, see the trees outside. All their tiny little hearts bleeding purple and green. “They look like jewels” you say. Indeed, they did. Freshly banished from the garden, we step outside. Indifferent to the punishments. Unafraid to wander. Unafraid to roam. 

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Self-Portrait as Vesuvius

By ​Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe

​In this room where I discover again the music of silence. Where heaven burns in waves of brighter vision. Where I am a flower opening to the sun of my palms. I have realized, I never needed wings to fly. What use have I for them, when I can touch this sex—and behold the entire world? Each fap a whip of the body's horse. Each tug another worship, another carnal god. The speeds are inhuman and right now, so are you. Go faster. Ride, swim, burn. This is the purpose of the flesh. This hot life waiting, aching to erupt. This little death, white and warm. The aim is to see how far you can go. View the end of the world. Where we are nothing but black space. And heat. And stardust. So go faster. Body, horseman, horse. Ride, swim, burn. I do not care what I turn out to be*. Ash or lava. Flame or seawater. I do not care what I turn out to be*. 

*"I do not care what I turn out to be" is based on a line from the poem "Half" by Reuben Gelley Newman

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​Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe, Swan X, is a budding poet from Port Harcourt, Nigeria. He has been published in Weganda Review, Cloudscent Journal, Serotonin, Isele, Dawn Review, Poetry Sango-Ota, and Poetry ColumnNND amongst others. He is the winner of the 2024 Kukogho Iruesiri Samson Poetry Prize, co-winner of the 2024 Poetry ColumnNND Chapbook Award, the 2024 Folorunsho Editor's Prize for Poetry and has been shortlisted for the 2025 Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize. You can find him listening to his favorite singer Lana del Rey, or writing a poem. He tweets @mesomaccius.