AN ACT OF LOVE, HOWEVER SMALL

I turned on the TV & saw
a woman
speaking through
a mouthful
of blood. Except

there was no blood, it had been wiped clean. & she had
no mouth, but a gutted violin. & no god-soaked rhetoric
could convince us of a
       “sanctified violence.” An eye for an eye means
who’s watching the kids? Well, the kids are alright,

except for the bullet-holes.

Except for the suicides.

Except for what they’ll do to one another.

*

More than mines, every war zone is littered with little tendernesses.
Glances,
touches,
kind words
live on long after the body. Long after the blast.

An act of love

blesses the space that held it;
rings on
like a retina after light.

By Maya Owen

Biography:

Maya Owen will never get over the Library of Alexandria. Her poems have appeared most recently (or are forthcoming) in voicemailpoems, Electric Cereal, and Alexandria Quarterly. She is a proud staff member at Winter Tangerine Review, and writes regularly at mementonasci.tumblr.com.