Tusk for Tusk
In your house of ivory
you’ve already forgotten—
we’ll never forget:
Silence but the leaves
rustling as we stretched
for fruit. Sun bathing us in soft light. Us
together, a herd,
a family—
idyll.
Until firearms ricocheted
hitting Mia, killing Yasmin.
Blood trailed as we scampered
bellowing in fear / ire / pain.
Losing some to gunshots,
others to oblivion.
You laughed and cheered for a moment, forgotten
for eternity.
But our tears never dry,
they never left this ground.
Roles reversed
and it would be you
on the ground bloodied, breathless.
It would be your kin
weeping salt water—
life never the same, emptied.
There would be
uproar / revolution
against a crime against humanity to celebrate and mourn your life.
Who will mourn us? Who will fight for us?
Every year we go back
to the crimson trail.
It’s silent but the leaves
rustling as we stretch
for fruit. Sun bathes us
in soft light. Us not all together, less a herd, less a family—still grieving / raging.
Nadia Gerassimenko is the founding editor of Moonchild Magazine, associate editor at Luna Luna Magazine, and proofreader at Red Raven Book Design. She is a freelancer in editorial services by trade, a poet and writer by choice, a moonchild and nightdreamer by spirit.