
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.