Child soldier

by Mihaela Melnic / August 21st, 2022

You grab the guns with hand of milk
with fingers that had never held
a pen within.
You cannot read the fear in your target’s eyes
but surely you’ve been taught
to wash your hands of all that blood.

The trigger should get stuck
when there is a human target,
when there’s a child who pulls it
sometimes so innocently.
The blood should stop to flood
each field and every valley.
The pallid cherry flowers
should not fall on new graves.

Mihaela Melnic lives and writes in Rome, Italy. Her work has been published in various literary venues and anthologies, including Dissident Voice and Spillwords Press. Her book of poetry, Layers of Rust and Life was published in 2023 from Impspired Press. She also co-authored the poetry and short fiction book Evermore (2021, 17Numa Press). Links to her publications can be found at her website: Read other articles by Mihaela.

This article was posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2022 at 8:02am and is filed under Poetry.