What Rough Beast | Poem for July 29, 2019

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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