AFTER THE WAR BY ESSAH COZETT

After all this time, I have nothing

but empty barrels to bring you. 

For years, I watched my Grandma 

pack brown cylinders to bronze rims 

always thinking of her children back home. 

I never knew when I would visit 

the block factory on Sinkor 

or swim at Robertsport.

Sitting in my closet, I would bend 

my body to see how I could survive the ship,

sailing from Snellville to somewhere 

I only saw in my dreams. 

My uncle said after the war, 

they arrived in Sierra Leone by sea. 

I never learned your love languages.

I never learned your history. 

All I knew was that my Grandma's brother 

was assassinated in the coup 

and I was born in a small city in Georgia. 

Now her body is buried besides her brothers in Bensonville, 

maybe this is why after all this time

I carry containers collecting rubble and ruins.