A POEM by NAANA EYIKUMA HUTCHFUL
Big Deal
Yesterday, I stared transfixed at you// Sitting at the kitchen counter//Picking at the strawberries//In the tiny heart-shaped bowl//That I forced you to get//Because I said it would be cute//To see you eat from a heart-shaped bowl//And it was//Meditative and beautiful//You have a way of making//The most mundane things//look like a bite of heaven//You know you owe me, you said//For that image of you//That will always be more beautiful//Than the sun setting over the mountains//In Iceland//I keep this image of you//That only gets sharper// The sun setting behind you//Bright orange glow cast across your face// And my heart nimbling to hold you//You know I can’t swim, I said//But you placed your hand on my knee//And you drove and I dove//Into the ocean in Reykjavik//I was a goner then//Because I told myself//And then you//That I couldn’t imagine needing anything more than this//Bliss //You know, we are so intense//The sky is literally vast//And we are so small in comparison// But we’re fluid//Do you still want to go watch the stars// On a deep green field in the middle of nowhere// and talk about how//We’re so different from everybody else//Who sits cradling//a heart that only beats//For someone else// The sky is immobile//And we’re not// The sky is infinite//And we are a big deal.
Naana Eyikuma Hutchful (they/them) is a Ghanaian writer with work appearing in Maudlin House, Unbroken Journal, 3Elements Review, Gone Lawn, and forthcoming elsewhere. They like sunrises, Baja Blasts, and Wong Kar-Wai films.