Venus Di Milo, by Jessica L. J. Smith

Upon matriculating, her parting gift was a pair of combat boots.

Artemis was jealous, Athena loathed her.

Off to war she flew on a comet of enthusiasm.

While other women danced heady in full bloom,

sweating through the darkest part of the night,

She laid low, hair pulled back, breasts pushed flat

against her chest, bathed in cold sweat and dust.

At first light the rocketing sounds of the machines

tore through her delicate maternal fears.

Her empty womb sliced painfully at her brazen heart.

She was resolved at dusk, when she saw the vacant bodies of

children, sprawled out, broken.

Athena had no sympathy, fate blew the boots clean off.

Blood and limbs flayed, her eyes closed, parallel with the horizon.

Empty days and nights pass in black silence,

She woke to sound of the tidal moon, the aching of her womb.

She reached out with nothing.

An echo of her arms, with itchy, ghostly pain—sheered off at the Humerus and

Acromion bones—was jarring and ominous.

The first thing she mourned was the idea

of never holding a child.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aspiring writer, adequate human, loyal friend.