milk
John Medeiros

if it’s milk
it’s really white
glass eyes,
setting their
blurred sight
on what might
be bumpy roads,
or that mosquito
at summer’s end ―
could it comprehend
its destruction lay
a fingertip away,
its sudden death
silent as a baby?
and if it’s oil
it’s really blood
hidden beneath
the frozen earth
and all that good
stuff they said should
thaw is awaiting
the caress
like dead wood.
it’s there, they say,
to recall the day
when summer’s green
kept us clean
and belief in Jesus
pleased us.

John Medeiros is a writer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  His work has appeared in several journals, including Sport Literate, Water-Stone Review; Gulf Coast; Willow Springs; Gents, Badboys and Barbarians; Evergreen Chronicles; Swell, and Christopher Street. He is the recipient of two Minnesota State Arts Board grants; a Jerome Foundation Grant for Emerging Writers; Gulf Coast's First Place Nonfiction Award (Wayne Koestenbaum, judge); and the AWP Intro Journals Project Award. He received an MFA from Hamline University, in St. Paul, Minnesota, and his work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays of 2006. He is curator of the Queer Voices Reading Series in the Twin Cities.  His website is www.jmedeiros.net.

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