A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry

I Live on Milk Street

82 A Face to Meet the Faces I Live on Milk Street Martha Silano Via Lactea, to be exact. Once it was the path to Zeus’s palace, then a creamy cul-de-sac; now they just keep widening and widening. Its origin? On that the jury’s still out. It could have been paved by the Holy People who crawled to the surface through a hollow reed, then formed my kind from ears of white and yellow corn. Some say it was born of Juno’s wrath, wrath that tore her breast from a suckling infant Hercules (her no-good hubby once again knocking up a mortal). What spurted up, they tell me, begat this little avenue, this broad and ample road where I merry-go-round with my 200–300 billion neighbors, give or take a billion or two. (Then again, it might’ve all been cooked up by Raven.) My street has the mass of a trillion suns; my roundabout’s a black hole. My backyard abuts with my dear friend Io’s. She’s always asking me to come on over, but enduring speeds upward of 106,000 mph Releasing the Kraken 83 usually means I’m waving from the porch. (On the plus side, the ash from her many volcanoes does wonders for my whispering bells.) I do wish I could get to know the Leptons, though. I invite them to my cookouts, but they’re always off to hither and yon. And I don’t mean to be catty, but it’s high time Ms. Nuclear Bulge ponied up for some high power Spanx. I know there’s a whole lot else out there— starbursts, whirlpools, magellanic clouds— but I’m busy enough keeping up with the slugs attacking my pole beans, making sure the garbage goes out. Truth be told, I’m happy right here where I am, lulled by my own sweet byway’s hazy halo, its harmony of traffic. ...