Mouths Bathed In Milk

Mother - I wiped your tear draped cheeks 

gently with infant feather fingers, held

heartbreak in my newborn gaze.

You desired me fiercely - a balm for neglect,

as I wrapped tiny arms around

a stuffed white woolly lamb, my

first week beyond your body’s interior.

You savored a black & white photograph 

as proof - a trophy.

Even then I knew how to love tenderly

as if my giving began in your womb.

Your motherhood dreams to nurse me

from your breasts, disallowed by doctors

who deemed sterile bottles superior

to warm milk flowing from your ducts 

to my soul. Cushioned my supple skull, 

folded me into your chest to feed. 

I drank your despair and emptiness,

offered what an infant can.

At seventy I seek to suckle the nipple of life,

grasp for joy that tingles my tummy, 

a blue sky filled with milky clouds,

libations that soothe my unsettled-ness

enough to nourish us both, so we will float

together in the misty light of dawn,

our mouths bathed in liquified sweetness,

our souls engorged with laughter.