Cynthia Horvath - San Francisco Blue IMG_1956.jpg

Content Warning: death, dark themes

Olowonjoyin Muhammed Sanni – Agave

my knees now hurt from the contempt of

folding them into prayers like rum folds

fire into throats. I’m searching for God’s

voice in a nightmare to plead for a touch

to waken and untwine the knot in my

chest. they say I’m close to it as a verb

to a gerund. say wake me. say the awakening

of a voice in the smoke a county’s tomorrow

is smoldering into. say sometimes, I don’t

know what I beseech in the opium of a

utopia that canoes me through a land

bereft of lamentations and agaves and tired poplars

like a poem dying inside me. by this I mean,

a boy decides to burn, and breathe

the fire of reverse baptism.

isn’t this how we say our destinies are

embossed in the folds of our hands, and

how we become knights fighting wars from

our emptiness?

Olowonjoyin Muhammed Sanni, he/him, studies Biochemistry in University of Ilorin. His works have been published or forthcoming in My Woven Words anthologies, Poemify, Livina Press, Arts Lounge, Nanty Greens, in his head and elsewhere. When he's not tracing biochemical pathways, he's either writing, playing games, reading tweets, or thinking about making his life better. He tweets @aperse_ and on Facebook as Olówónjoyin Muhammed Sanni.

Photograph: San Francisco Blue by Cynthia Horvath

Cynthia Horvath is an encaustic artist, photographer and poet. She was one of nine poets selected for the August 30/30 Project by Tupelo Press in 2018. Her poem "Cold as the Deepest Moonlight" was published in 2020 for the Gemini issue of Finding the Birds literary journal. Her poem "Ever is a Long Time" was published in 2020 by Lucky Jefferson. Cynthia had three poems featured in Orcanus, the inaugural issue of Night Sky Press in 2021. Her encaustic art piece "Raven" was recently featured in Acropolis in 2021. She is currently at work on her debut chapbook Dark Leopard of the Moon.