In Which a Son and a Mother Meet at the Parking Lot of an Airport Where Queerness Attempts Not to Be a Metaphor for a Bridge

this time around / we begin where we are most tender
the wreckage of our dear past / we stumble into

with a stark desire / to ask for a sweet tongue
you say my son / & that becomes enough—

to know that / the true taste of freedom
lies in our ability / to move toward each other

here i present myself / with no need for syntax
my face pressed against the warmth / of your long

forgotten hand / what good can we afford the moment
other than this —the recognition / of kinship

you pull me close / & the threshold becomes
a history / we aim to forget

BY Ugochukwu Damian Okpara

Ugochukwu Damian Okpara is a Nigerian writer and poet. He is the author of the poetry collection, In Gorgeous Display (Fordham University Press, Sept 2023). A 2023 Lambda Literary fellow and an alumnus of Chimamanda Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus Trust Creative Writing Workshop, his work appears or is forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Poetry Wales, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Greensboro Review, The Masters Review, Lolwe, The Republic, 14 Poems, Ruminate, and other places. He is also the author of the poetry chapbook, I Know the Origin of My Tremor (Sundress Publications, 2021).

In Which a Son and a Mother Meet at the Parking Lot of an Airport Where Queerness Attempts Not to Be a Metaphor for a Bridge

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In Which a Son and a Mother Meet at the Parking Lot of an Airport Where Queerness Attempts Not to Be a Metaphor for a Bridge

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They stand, rocking back & forth in the wind

On Meds