The National Gallery, Edinburgh, 2015
It’s true. I did not need
them, the mounds of flesh
where my children should have
fed, their milkteeth nibbling
cracked skin, suckling little drops of
blood with every gulp of milk.
Still, as I lie bleeding,
my breasts carried away in a bowl
(perhaps given to a hungry dog)
I want them back. I send a prayer
like a stumbling child to heaven.
I wait in the blooming red.
©️ Ellie White, 2016
(First published by |tap| magazine, 2016)
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| The martyrdom of St. Agatha by a follower of C. Welcome from Wikimedia Commons |
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