appealing

The Maynard
Fall 2020

Tolu Oloruntoba
0:00
 
 

Pattern Recognition

From the crash of Paleolithic
dusk on concentric days:
it’s a circular route
and a roving dome of dark.

The companion of
moments ago will dissolve,
become a carousel of arms,
a whir of charcoal into black

and I a coat hanger of pleas,
boxing the envelope
of blindness. Approaching
the other rotor in my space,

the thrum of electrostatic
greeting startles, the memory of
voltage attracts, the friction of
sensate digs spurs the canter,

collection of charge for later
experiments, the calibrations, through
chest walls, of hooves bearing
a mute, unravelling eureka, harried,

hurrying. In the half-decade of nighttime
necessities, a suggestion of warmth,
a rumor of a contained dawn below,
a sputter, for us to see the invention of fire.