"What Could Have Been in Anfield" by Chidiebube onye Okohia

we could have yelled our love as cheers

circling the stadium. Ribboned

new relationship. Our energies

following each player to the Kop end.

and we could have binged highlights

of what-a-great-chance

that comes before that-is-a-fantastic-goal

while curled up in Hotel Anfield. But

it’s a love ago. I belong

to a new house now. Isolated

on a large, hilly expanse of greenery, where every grass

is a strand of desire. Still,

thoughts of you continuously lodge,

gegenpress, creep up to a cliff and then fall

off, waking me

up to the stress of each day like the early antiphon

of a yawning steam. Maybe

we should have spent that weekend

in Anfield—a field, any field.

Chidiebube onye Okohia is a Nigerian creative. His prose and poems have appeared/forthcoming in swamp pink, TriQuarterly, Rhino, Callaloo, Able Muse, and elsewhere. He is the former poetry editor of The Shallow Tales Review. Find him on Instagram @o.okohia and X @o_okohia.