A Touch of Heaven

I was born a year too soon,

but my father said that my chi was awake,

though I failed at being a worthy child;

I took care to mould my God in my image,

the picture of rain and clouds in the sky,

my likeness was like the sun and the moon,

the rain that falls at night, the hour ticking,

where time was a tumour of the earth;

a copy of my selfishness, a memoir of my ego,

a love letter to my bloated waistline,

a savage, a monster, a killer of the perfect,

of those in whose heads there’s no mercy.

After my God was resurrected, after ascension,

I felt the same as when he lived and died,

as though his death made no difference

between one ending epoch and another,

between one beginning life and the other.

How often have I gone with licking blood

and asked my God to clean up the mess;

after all, my father said if I agreed to do a thing,

my God had no choice but to fall into line.

Was it not the duty of my God to follow me around,

chaperoning me like a baby or a disabled,

after I claimed that I was an adult?

I walk around with the effigy of my God

slotted in my palms, head and heart,

wherever I must consult to meet my needs;

I have come to believe the miracles

which soak my body like a downpour,

that each step I take, each thought I think,

every foolish dream I have in the afternoon,

is a touch made in the Heaven I create,

even those little dreams where I shed blood.

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Jonathan Chibuike Ukah lives in the United Kingdom. His poems have been featured in Lucky Jefferson Literary Magazine, The Pierian, Propel Magazine, Atticus Review, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets and elsewhere. He won the Alexander Pope Poetry Award in 2023. He was the Editor’s Choice Prize Winner of Unleash Lit in 2024, the Second Poetry Prize Winner at the Streetlights Poetry Prize in 2024 and the Winner of the Poet of the Month December-January 2025 at the Literary Shark Poetry Contest. His Chapbook, A is for Anfang, is forthcoming from Island of Wak Wak.