Monday, December 14, 2015

milking




moon,
  what are you seeking hiding
under my belly?



XIV

the lactation consultant who came
to show me how to hook

up the portable breast
pump had prosperous

brown hair—and a red triangle of cloth
in her right breast smock pocket.

she smiled through the whole
three minute meeting,

through the whir and beat
of the machine

that would vacuum your milk
out of me.

but without your bouquet, your face,
i wasn’t giving up

anything.  the cone cup covering
my swollen teat felt like a hat

some unselfconscious sports fan
or mardi gras spring- breaker

flashing the floats for beads—
plastic balls strung by the millions

Fat Tuesday’s only linger, a forgettable binge.

and me? me,  i’m so FAT i can barely
walk, the fluid under my skin

puffing my feet into water
balloons, I want to pop them

so my shoes fit.  instead
i sit by a drafty window and keep pumping

first right, pull pull pull a drop or two
then left, pull pull pull a drop or two

then right again. then left.  
not enough to paste your little lips

puckered far far away in that untranslatable 
wasteland, our weir broken, the slough

of us afloat, the tide receiding



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