Nursery Rhyme

Nursery Rhyme The baby's crying wets my blouse with milk. That's nature's guarantee inscribed deep down I'll nurse his high-pitched hunger till he's filled. My full breasts ache, and now he aims to bilk them both for all they're worth. Instinct lets down and soaks my last clean blouse with leaking milk. (The hamper— piled with cottons, wools, and silks dried stiff and fragrant with the same sweet-sour souvenir of hungers nursed— is filled.) My jealous daughter wants a snack, warm milk and bread and honey, and she wants it now. The baby's ruckus ruins my blouse with milk— I slam about the kitchen, moan, and grouse, Did Rilke, Yeats, or Whitman put theirfull pens down to nurse some other hunger till itfilled? . . . My shirt! My spoiled career! The baby frets and frowns until our bodies touch. My love floods down. His baby cries subside now, doused in milk. I nurse his quiet hunger till we're filled. —Lynn Powell 91 ...