Michael Emmanuel

the night holds no love

i read of a city where the streetlights cast halos
of people displaced from their lovers’ grips, 

how they became a colony of sounds reaching
for what they lost. it means that a finger sometimes
goes at war with its ring, a bullet with its trigger. 

you don’t have to come into this room, but if you
do, there is music, there are glasses of white wine,
there is the promise of roses by your pillow, a basin 

of water for your swollen feet, a playlist curated
from hours of stargazing. we can be merry, can
libate the wounds in our mouths, can nail wooden

temples for the dreams we took from your grand-
mother, where we carried a tongue bathed in saltwater
as we crossed out the names of cousins who
climaxed into limbo as waves buried the seashore. 

we can pour wine and call a toast to dusk. and if we
escape the night, may the bullet be kind to our memories.

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Michael Emmanuel is a creative writer from Lagos. He was a semifinalist for the 2021 Jack Grapes Poetry Contest, a honorable mention for the 2022 Stephen A DiBiase Poetry Contest and was on the longlist for the 2021 Ake Creative Trust Award. His works have appeared in Ake Review, Jalada Mag, Twelve Mile Review, perhappened mag and other places. He is on Twitter @mikey_emmanuel