WALL PAINTING WITH BULLET WOUNDS
Falling soldiers and a shoulder
painted the wall red. My dreams
broke the midnight. A dancing body
dressed in fire, the voice of bullets
shouting die, die, die inside every
hole they dug. I kissed her till
she stretched towards God, I kissed
the red spring flowing from her chest.
My body mistook my lover’s shadow
for mine. Her shadow is too still,
silent as the tongue of rivers.
I cannot taste salt on my cheek,
what is light without darkness?
I cannot find my shadow inside a room
lit with light from a burning house,
what is love without loneliness?
I cannot stop my heart from burning
outside my lover’s heart. Love is
a street littered with ashes, grief is
the scavenger’s lash, my grief is
the music of a muffled forest. I belong to
the shadow created with my lover’s blood.
Wale Owoade is a Nigerian poet. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Spillway, Chiron Review, Cordite Poetry Review, Apogee Journal and Radar Poetry among others. He is a recipient of 2015 Tony Tokunbo Poetry Silver Award. Wale is the Publisher and Managing Editor of EXPOUND: A Magazine of Arts and Aesthetics, he also founded and interviews at The Strong Letters and the Creative Director of Bard Studio.