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Chris Abani is a storyteller known for bringing the heart of Africa into his narratives. Born in Nigeria, he published his first novel, Masters of the Board, at the age of sixteen and was thrown into prison for it. He turned his jail experiences into poems that Harold Pinter called “the most naked, harrowing expression of prison life and political torture imaginable.” Among his best-selling novels are The Virgin of Flames and GraceLand, winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. Abani is a Board of Trustees Professor of English at Northwestern University and lives in Chicago.

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War Widow

by Chris Abani
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The telephone never rings. Still
you pick it up, smile into the static,
the breath of those you’ve loved; long dead.

The leaf you pick from the fall
rises and dips away with every ridge.
Fingers stiff from time, you trace.
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  • I like your style. There are no hidden meanings to decipher...
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