Timi Sanni

Memories of War

I look into the barrel of a rusted cannon
and see death in the souls of a thousand men
hanging in the limbo of life’s purgatory
dripping innocent blood that falls as rain

& when father comes home
with a scar that tells of war, of a fire
on the threshold of a warrior's mind
I pick up a bloodied axe & search for hell
on the shores of a raging sea

I run into a cliff edge holding rebellion in my breath
a barrel of gunpowder within my body
but father becomes a shepherd
awaiting me with a certain love lingering
in the space between his arms that smells like home

in his eyes, blue like the ocean
I realize that fire cannot fight fire
that graves and burials are for war & healing is a heart
washed of grief in a bowl of zamzam

So I return home, a dove
with my wings measuring the sky for love
& lose myself within a halo of peace