The Martyrs

Tell me of the afterwards:
Drinking sunset aphrodisiacs,
Our wretched blood spilled over
Deep storm drains, our mouths
Full of silver light, our bodies

Painted like Leonardo’s
French girls. Tell me we didn’t
Beg like the vain things we were,
That we didn’t reach for a
Lizard scampering over
Bare toes, hungry, starved,

Finished with what never
Satisfied, silent as moonlight
Glinted over polished steel.
Tell me our black eyes
Refracted a quiver of flame,

That an opening in the earth
Became something desirable,
The way drowning becomes to a father
Throwing his child ashore.

 

 

 

 

Anja Benevento is a writer of poetry and short fiction, a lover of words, and a student of literature. She studied creative writing at Pacific Union College. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Kaaterskill Basin Literary Journal, Gamut, and Eunoia Review.