Dana Trupa
Milk Moon
Painted in metallic gold, this stone
has two drawn faces on it – a woman’s to the right
facing east
her infant’s to the left
facing west
On the Greek isle of Chios, the first spark was set.
Roaring wildfires, over four months.
They pillaged, looted, and raped.
Islander women committed
suicide, infanticide
by jumping off cliffs
to save their babes
their souls
from barbarous Turks.
War churned like souring milk and spilt from their breasts.
This milk-rock, sprouting inside your gut,
feels the massacre born into it, too –
this is not what it feels like to be at war
with the infant you might carry
from the piston of bad choices,
or incest—
but close.
Poems by Dana Trupa have appeared or are forthcoming in Red Cedar Review, S is for Sentence, and The Bangalore Review.
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