Poem of the week: Simulacrum by Oluwaseun Olayiwola

Simulacrum

There wasn’t love but there was what love becomes —
(sheet-wrinkle.) (skin-dune.) (Arm-ropes lassoing
our neck-flesh with push-and-pull —, equal amounts;
the hurt convincing its shape is false, the relation:
the recorded moment (he likes to record) (to remember), not true) —

Then the film buffering…the unfinished triangle
your body sculpts on top of his.
Frustration. Yes. Rejection. Oh yes.
The colon’s ring hammering, waking up (not again, nottonight). Tight. Loose. Bloodless (for now), dragginga palm across the brick wall – nowblood (for now) streaming from you like scripture —: