Twin bombs explode, 118 lives obliterated,
their bodies consumed by an inferno,
while a boy in Lowell, Massachusetts
creates a soda bomb, throws it at another boy,
a stranger he doesn't know,
some nameless face he can shrug off.
"Common," the authorities say.
"A phase. Just a phase."
Maybe that's what Nigeria thought
before all the abductions
and assaults became so prevalent.
It's a phase.
It will all go away.
Just wait.
©Kristina England
Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her writing is published or forthcoming at Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Gargoyle, New Verse News, Poetry24, and other magazines.
