Bloody September

Boko Haram fighters staged gun and suicide bomb
attacks on a military camp outside the University
of Maiduguri in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state
~ TheDefensePost

That night,
the stars had slept. The wind
silent as something dying.
I stood in the marrow of my
dread, waiting.
I had seen this before. The earth
shredding in the sober
year of 2014.
The soldiers had told us to
lie flat on the concrete, and
cup our hands for God.
I pleaded for grace, it’s flair
of swiftness to escape my sins.
The girl beside me ruffled her phone,
she beckons on home.
And this is how a mother
in her slouching chair,
finds her child dangling
in the teeth of prophecy—
returning home in a box.
I, in the midst of all the
screams and gunfire
busted with saltwater and insanity.
I remember the days
when it was all firecrackers.

Annah Atane is a Nigerian writer. She has been long-listed for the Bridgette Poirson Prize for literature and is a 2024 Voodoonauts and 2025 Sprinng fellow. Her works have appeared in the Brittle Paper, The menniscus, The Muse journal, Valiant Scribe, The Kalahari Review, Ric Journal and elsewhere.