by Julia C. Alter
All in by Julia C. Alter
by Julia C. Alter
I’ve said I remember nothing
of the first three months.
But when I start peeling back
the bleary out-of-body shroud,
the stitches, the sitz baths,
there’s the milk-
stained blue couch
where I woke in the blue
light, turning off
my alarm, turning on
the yellow pump
and the TV, every three hours
another automatic emptying.
An ounce or two, less than half
of what you needed, the box
of formula unopened
in the pantry. The refusal
to open, scoop, measure.
Watching the famous California chef
pipe Meyer lemon crème fraiche
into an empty egg shell with the
razor-cut cap, nothing
had ever been
so luxuriously precise.
And I remember
taking scissors
to my head
the next morning, wet
hair punctuating
the floor. Reading it
like tea leaves,
no room for pretty here.
Milk extracted
from my tits
like lemon juice
in the eye,
like a man
fighting
the urge to cry.
Thin cord of milk
pulled reluctantly
from the new abyss
where your body used
to be,
haphazard
grotesque,
a rough white rope
up through
my
breast is best
No, I’ll never forget
the sucking
that yellow machine did
when you couldn’t.
How I would
grind my teeth
like I was coming down
off ecstasy
when the only thing left
is the chills,
the useless hollows
of a body
shitting and shivering,
the threat
of the flesh
coming back,
feverish and frigid
fragile
as 4 AM as baby an egg shell
opened up
and ready
to be filled
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