TROUT   [5]

Anna Jackson
 
Elvira, the feed and me
 
  You are under the hair but not talking
to me or looking at me, just sucking
intent on my breast while your hair
carries on its conversation with my nose,
lifting up soft and white from the thin sheet
of skin on your bony head, saying
fluff fluff fluff fluff fluff.

I am over the breast watching you
but not talking to you, just sitting
with you and sniffing your hair,
while my milk comes lolloping, lolloping,
all lopsided, hurtling into your mouth
and pooling itself for the headlong slide
(sort of a talking) down your throat.

Now the milk is almost asleep, just a drip
of attention in your mouth then nothing
and you call it to you with one last suck
but it is sleepy now, just a baby pool of milk,
that you swill down into the dark and dismiss
with a swing of your eyes, hello! hello!
hello! hello! you come racing back to me.
 

  © 1998 

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