By Sarah O. Oso

Featured art by Philip Henry Delamotte

When it happens—and it will,
bright as a bed of red tulips
shaking out their flags in rows,

or rising like steam off the top
of a lid—allow it to uncurl.
Stand and stretch. It’ll be the pop

of sockets, of elbow and hip, sighing
into place after waking. Vertebrae aligning
like rhyme beneath the skin.

By noon, it’ll head on over, whistling
with cans of white paint in hand, here
to restore the chipped fence.

Imagine restirring. The heart’s late-night diner
singing to life when someone shoots
a nickel down the juke. Belting a familiar tune,

good and even—the way the radio plays
in Papa’s ’74 Firebird you figured couldn’t run
until that summer it roared

back, and you sat shotgun
against the black leather, windows open
the whole drive home to Florida.

And if it’s anything like the state of sunshine,
then it’s soft and airy and easy.
Like the seat you’ve settled into, just now,

where it nestles once more at the foot
of the chair, dozing, or otherwise
poking its wet nose at your palm.

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Sarah O. Oso is a Nigerian–American young person living in Atlanta, where she recently graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology and works in the field of law. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in various journals and at writing festivals.