The Art of the Blood Sacrifice
Margaret Wack
Ishtar ate infants also: crunched them
greedily and spared their kin from flood
and famine, drank their blood and blessed
their brothers. Abraham led his, all lamb-eyed
and bound neatly without struggle,
up the mountain to be slaughtered
for a hungry god. All history is full
of children left to die on mountainsides,
in deep forests or rivers, in the hands of others –
the cat swallows her kittens, and is satisfied,
and you too enact some sweet, sudden revenge,
lick your lips clean afterward, no shame in it.
You sail to Athens and forget.
Margaret Wack has had her work previously published in ditch, Eclectica, and Strange Horizons, among others. More can be found at margaretwack.com.