The Event

By Timi Sanni

I arrived at this world already primed for pain—
the hurt, persistent, primal, poised.

Born on the rubble in the wake of the war,
I was no different from that child
birthed in the aftermath of the world’s worst divorce.

The world knew nothing of my birthing,
but everything about the conjugal knife
which came before and thus was senior.

So I learned quickly to tiptoe
around origin and place, fearful
of what mines a misstep might make.

I learned to shut my ears to the music of pain
so that what came opening in blooms
were the red valves of my heart.

But today, my father is dying
beneath this broken bridge
and all those lessons become lesions
whipping me into a wound.

My father speaks
of the towers
in the voice of his wife—
that woman who fled long ago
from cot to comfort.
In the distance, the tall metal ghosts do nothing
but remind me how far we fell from grace.

My father says: once, there was a republic;
no towers, no undercity. He says once,
love was a spirit that walked amongst us
in garbs too green to grab. He says—

And then, I am telling him to stop.
I am lying to him
like I always have. It’s okay, Pa, I say.
It’s okay. Though there is nothing of such
in this place of rust.

What even is okay? Death happens
to memory, and like a fool, I forget
the meaning of words.

My father, dying now at my breast like a child.
What milk do I have to give?

.

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BIO:
Timi Sanni is a writer, editor, and multidisciplinary artist from Lagos, Nigeria. He is the founder of The Muslim Write Initiative and a member of The Deadliners.

The recipient of the 2021 Anita McAndrews Poetry Contest Award and winner of the 2022 Kreative Diadem Contest, his works appear or are forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, New Delta Review, Cincinnati Review, Lolwe, Wax Nine, and elsewhere.

He is an alumnus of Nairobi Writing Academy, and was an attendee at the Revolutionary Poetics Masterclass with Kaveh Akbar.