Moonlit Memories
Gospel Chinedu
this is for the moonlit memories,
the men who turned into sad bats
and owls and raccoons and foxes. i was
hunted once in a wilderness by a fox
who turned out to be my grandfather.
he was still sad about dying
in the war without saying goodbye.
i knew it was him because when he saw
my face, he stopped and wagged his tail.
& once in my perilous lonesomeness,
an owl nesting on a baobab hooted
my favourite song. i could tell it
was her, my dear aunt, who used to
sing me to bed & watch me sleep.
she died waiting for him to return.
she died grieving him. the night
is waiting for me outside & i’m
ready to collide with darkness again—
in search of my dead. how beautiful,
darkness, they say, is a colloid—
a mixture of dust and memories.
i’m ready to be prey, to run, to crawl,
to cry, to laugh, to dance, to stand
still like a body without its ousia.
i hold a glowing eye in one hand
as the wick burns the oil. i'm not
afraid of the dark. i just don't want
to relive another misery. like when
once, i was chased down by a bat-
talion of bats, i could smell their
anger from miles away. they were
African warriors who died during
the civil wars and got no justice
in the end. this is for the moonlit
memory i have of my grandfather—
not as a fox that hunts the bereaved
at night, but as flesh and bone,
as a star that guides my shadow
into a quiet dream where i can tame
the rebellion of my grief into repose.
so i walk into the moon, with my
glowing eyes and an expectation
to find a white dove nestled deep
in this darkness cooing soft and
gentle, the songs that would find
my dead hidden in their lair, tamed
and sober. but when i reached the
depth of the darkness, i was blind
and disappointed because there was
silence that could dislocate the
joints of hope i’ve created inside
my head. then there were eerie
screams of foxes raging and racing
towards me. and if i’m not
delusional, my grandfather must be
one of them. but what if he does not
get to me first? so i gathered enough
air into my lungs, and began to sing
my grandfather’s favourite song.
suddenly, the foxes stopped barking,
and started wagging their tails. then,
i realized that all this while, i was
the white dove, the one to tame the
wilderness of this moonlit memory
into a utopia where all my dead live
happily ever after.
Gospel Chinedu is an Anatomist and poet based in Anambra,
Nigerian Danielson. He is a joint-winner of the 11th Suspect Poetry
Prize, 2025. His works of poetry have appeared or are forthcoming
in Strange Horizons, Augur Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, Uncanny
53Magazine, The Deadlands, Haven Speculative, Small Wonders Magazine,
Heartline Spec, and elsewhere. Gospel tweets at @gonspoetry.ut
