Christina's World

My legs have fallen asleep beneath me,

limbs slumbering in static, erratic buzzing.

The itch of brittle, tawny grass barely registers as it’s

whipped by the wind.

Like the bovines father nurtures,

only to be slaughtered by his hand.

The calloused palms that held my own

as a babe, I trembled on wobbly knees.

We are not like them, he says.

Yet I hear them now, crying

for their mothers, like a child,

directionless and dizzy with despair.

I had not noticed the distance I had wandered

to escape those hands,

interwoven in prayer,

together while wielding the knife.

The puncture of flesh,

still tender and bloody, and raw.

We are not like them, he says, but

I still cry for my mother.

I still wander the fields of seeds,

struggling to erupt into bloom without her hands,

careful, steady, and kind.

We are not like them, he says.

My legs have fallen asleep beneath me.

Hands ringing the bell, signaling me home.

Lambs nip at my heel, still buzzing, following,

flocking together to the slaughter.

We are not like them, he says. Aoife is an Irish poet living in Los Angeles. When she is not frantically writing in her journal, she can be found in a bookstore with an arm full of novels or telling her cat how perfect he is.