Fifteen Chibok girls stand in a line,
their faces sombre, eyes haunted,
expressions of the near-dead.
They mutter their names as if they are ghosts
“Maimuna…Rifkatu …Naomi …”

These Christian girls have their heads covered,
dark robes drape over them like items of laundry.
What experiences are hidden beneath?
No hiding from their captors, no escape,
and no-one’s finding them.

It must be hard for them to believe:
where are their parents,
the troops with binoculars, infra-red detectors?
Would they imagine that Goodluck Jonathan
would deny their kidnap?

Abhorrent years when they should have been
giggling in their dormitories,
chatting about bras and periods,
exchanging dreams,
flirting shyly with first boyfriends.

Instead they are brainwashed into Islam
held in Cimmerian jungles by fierce men,
forced to wear suicide vests,
pleasure their Boko Haram captors,
blow up a market place where their parents shop.