Moon’s Milk, Lion’s Milk
by Zia Pollis
I. Moon’s Milk
For years I believed I was the furthest daughter from the son.
An alien body, a broken orb
in rotation around a more sacred center. My father,
the Jupiter King, the Purple God,
raised a storm of love in our shaking house, cast mad man-thunder
among us women. No sun would rise from my only mother.
And believing in some shortage of light, I settled into the shelter
of the darkest blue, the depression hue. Feeding at night
I nursed from the full breast of the moon.
Slow suckled, I fattened with the sweet cream
of dreaming.
II. Lion’s Milk
For years I dreamed of a woman where my girl self stood.
Large and laughing. Rose gold and radiant
as a sunrise restless for birthing in the body of a queen.
Cherries and blood, a blush in the air,
the Madonna of Daybreak arose like a blister of heat and in my brain
the promise of personhood spread like a long red stain.
And dreaming, I saw her in my house with lions
carrying crescent moons in their mouths, like dripping bodies of fish
torn from the blue night ocean. These beasts of the sun chewed the cold
flesh of fear. And my lady, in turning to me, cast a long shadow
of light.
* Writing Prompt: Write a poem about a problem/predicament/past event and then, using the same structure, compose a liberated, reimagined response/resolution/revolution to it.
Zia Pollis
Zia Pollis is a poet and illustrator from Northern New Mexico now residing in Massachusetts. She is a Master’s of Divinity student at the Harvard Divinity School and holds a BA in English from Reed College. Her nonfiction and poetry have been featured in Nailed Magazine.