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(After Women of Owu by Femi Osofisan)
No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark – Warsan Shire.
The fire began slowly, stirring us from our nightmares. We committed our bodies to earth. As if the earth needed permission to retrieve what belonged to it. Our worship did not leave the altars. We ignored the harbingers of despair clamouring for the property of our ruins. Before the smoke raised for itself a committee, the gods had struck themselves deaf, blind, and dumb. When the hunger came, we wilded out. When the drought came, we laid in worship. When the chains clicked around our necks, we had songs for our faith. We gave them our goats, We gave them our children, We crawled on our knees and bled for our yams. Our tongues writhed on the floor, a perpetual oblation.
Chinecherem Enujioke (she/her/hers), TPC XV, is a 2024 SprinNG Fellow. She is the Winner of the Fidelis Okoro Prize for Poetry and has been longlisted or shortlisted for other awards, including the 2024 ZODML Poetry Prize, the 2025 Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize, the Idumaese Alao Prize for Literature (2024), the Nwamaka Okoye Literature Prize for Poetry (2024) and SEVHAGE-KSR Hyginus Ekwuazi Poetry Prize (2023). Her works have appeared in Lolwe, Brittle Paper, The Muse Journal, and elsewhere. She is @vcenujioke on Instagram.
