Sacrifice

by NELLE YVON

Alice is covered in bruises, gaining no weight,
and daily, syncope pulls her to linoleum.
Her obstetrician tells her to
eat a steak or a burger for chrissakes
but she hasn’t eaten meat since she was ten,
since a field trip to a farm featured calf-butchering.
At the first stick of exsanguination, she went lights out.
Straw clung to her hair the long bus ride home.

But today, on doctor’s orders, she drives through In-n-Out,
gets a Double-Double. She idles in a parking lot,
holding the cheeseburger with both hands.
Flashes of cattle fill her mind as she chews—
gorgeous Holsteins, Belgian Blues,
their bellies sway as they low. As they chomp grass.
Alice touches her own belly, the papaya-sized baby
she feeds and grows.
She feels me kick as she finishes lunch,
as she licks her fingers clean.

Ω

Nelle Yvon (she/her) lives in Georgia and writes about the doomsday cult of her youth, high-control fundamentalism, and psychopathy. She is the managing editor for Beyond Bars, a journal dedicated to amplifying the voices of incarcerated writers and artists.

Caleb Ishaya Oseshi is documentary photographer. He embarked on his photography journey during the pandemic and has since never relented. He aims to tell stories through photography, exploring nature’s beauty and human diversity. His photographs are featured in Sunlight Press, Synchronized Chaos, Watershed Review, and other publication platforms. With exhibitions in Nigeria and the United States, he is a member of the African Photojournalism Database (APJD).