Bullets skitter from cobblestones into sky,
from shells into turrets, planes loop their runs
in reverse. Bodies jerk and slump back
from shells into turrets, planes loop their runs
in reverse. Bodies jerk and slump back
into being. One by one, my children rise
from where they fell, viscera snug
under skin, veins humming.
They walk unaware again.
Sky ushers back clouds and birds. My staples:
bread and eggs, nectarines back in hand.
I am not less than. I am a mother with hunger to feed.
Onlookers, who hid like flies watching us,
become people again. Espresso leaps
into demi-tasse, pastries half-eaten onto plates.
Words waft with aromas; apricots, sausage.
One by one, market stalls unsplinter and fill.
Customers inspect vegetables, intent on
the day’s bargain. My boy shouts his fury
at a soccer ball, my daughter runs
her hand over a bolt of magenta cloth.
No onlookers point. No planes
begin to howl their bestial descent. I finger
artichokes nubby as turtle skin, mandarins
dimpled with sun. I wave to my children.
Jane C. Miller’s poetry has appeared in Kestrel, Apple Valley Review and Summerset Review, among others. She received first prize in the 2020 Naugatuck River Review narrative poetry contest and her second fellowship in 2021 from the Delaware Division of the Arts. Miller is co-author of the poetry collection, Walking the Sunken Boards (Pond Road Press, 2019) and an editor of the online poetry journal, ൪uartet (www.quartetjournal.com).