Mohammed Sanni Olowojoyin 

 

Like every burning image asks for water,

He asks why everything dear to him evades 

His touch and become memories.     Smoke

Gobbling the wind — blinding chlorophylls. 

He, a newly birthed  line in another  poem

About to fall. He, a fracas. Something about

Sisyphus. A doorway of ghosts opening into

Another doorway of ghosts. Mirrors in mirror

Like we find emptiness here in search of calm

Or waters. How once, we reached it & it became 

Too little. Like dreams unable to quench a thirst

Or fire, or war. So here’s where he begins with

A prayer before another shooting star puts 

Another angel to sleep. The way we beseech

Mercies and the sands anger at our presence.

Say here are souls caked with desolation. Talons

Of memories biting deep. Hypothermia of loss.

I’ve been told in a version of grief that every

Lost thing here appears in the alternate of this

Universe alive. And there, I’ll be the lost one.

So, I write us into poems. To a place where 

Every lost thing is rediscovered.


Muhammed Olowonjoyin [TPC III] is a Nigerian poet. Winner of the 2023 The Dawn Prize for Poetry, his poems have featured or are forthcoming in Best Small Fictions, Olney Magazine, QAE Journal, Gutter Magazine, Pepper Coast Lit. Stanchion, Nigeria Newsdirect, Brittle Paper, The Sunlight Press, and elsewhere. A Best of The Net nominee, he tweets @APerSe_.