(piano-tuning)
by Alexis Teyie
Interstice,
a staggered release—
out of step, but thankfully,
ever tense, and trembling in concert
(first dead dog: CupCake) —
who is to say you are not
your own mother, nurse?
A sensory key, hammer
is the pin. My hymn: a crumpled
grocery list I discard,
anyhow.
Energy transfer,
kinetic traffic and
think: melodic,
these gilded weapons
of interference, beating,
towards a well-tempered mode.
(First miss-
ing tome: Pushkin.) Again.
Divergent and twin, this
(first limbs out of tune: right
shoulder, left ankle)
lost parent of mine, out of
time (indolent lungs) — you
are permitted a little
stuttering.
first instrument:
a set of un-
breakable nails; I run them across
screens, blackboards, dinner plates,
thighs, earth, walls,
sins,
water, that favourite sweater— yes,
log it all as a loss, careless
commerce— there is no accounting for
stillness.
a name without an owner,
I call it out from inside night’s crease,
this orphaned, liberated name.
I called from within this valley:
It’s so hard to keep our sins
straight, yawning
no no no no, up and
out.
I called to the usual
ballet of lovers, insisting my way
into this ill-fitting glory.
Joy, I know, sinks to
the bottom of any pool.
I follow the will.
Is that a lightness blooming
in me?
Source: From the Isolation Issue (September 2020)
(piano-tuning)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALEXIS TEYIE is a Kenyan writer and feminist. She is a co-founder and poetry editor with Enkare Review. Alex co-authored a children’s book, Short Cut (2015). She has also published a poetry chapbook, Clay Plates: Broken Records of Kiswahili Proverbs (2016), through the African Poetry Book Fund and Akashic Books (see on LitHub). Her poetry, short fiction or non-fiction have appeared in collections like Routledge’s Handbook of Queer Studies (2019); 20.35 Africa; Queer Africa II (GALA); ID (SSDA); Water (SSDA); Anathema’s Speculative Fiction. She has also been published by Jalada Africa, Omenana, This is Africa, Writivism, African Feminist Forum, among others. She also works as a data nerd and sings for a secret choir in Nairobi.
