Nick Makoha
Codex 1
Codex 1
In this story of falling a cigarette is brought back to life.
The body inhales. The sky is full of night. Soon it will be
dry season and the hills will rust but tonight, the night
keeps moving the way that birds do toward migration.
What does living do for any of us? The winds have found
some clouds to play with as trees rehearse the gesture
of surrender. Do birds think that cities are our version
of the natural world? Have you seen my city on fire?
Flames throwing themselves at buildings the way the sea
throws itself on the rocks. The furnace is the cities costume.
This world is a desperate element. I suffer the shame
of asking what happens in the voids. What shape does
the soil take when roots vanish? The visible making itself
known by the invisible. Rain falls through the trees
as the dark brick of our old lives is the pitch of the moment.