Amy Ralston Seife
Aleppo, February 2023
blanketed by his bedroom
walls face down
in rubble the cup he newly
learned to hold filled
with silent dust —
his mother trapped
in a distant corner
when the world lurched
and folded her milk
bleeding into earth
dreams him free
floating toward the sun
Amy Ralston Seife is a poet and short story writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lumina, Inkwell, The Ekphrastic Review, Literary Mama, Quartet, Indelible, Right Hand Pointing, The Five-Two, Plants & Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology and Pushcart Prizes, and is the editor-in-chief of The Westchester Review.