Eaton Hamilton

Happy Mother’s Day for those of you celebrating the occasion.  I have always loved it, for it brings spring flowers and my children to my side, along with reminiscences like breast feeding my girls.  My best Mother’s Day gift was when my children were very very small, and, in daycare, Sarah had made an ashtray (which I cherished).  Her little sister, almost two, wasn’t to be outdone.  She peeled out of my bedroom in a blaze and a minute later returned with her head cocked, blushing with pleasure, hiding something behind her back.  “What did you bring me, sweetheart?” I asked and she held it out.  Something from her room.  Something she could bear to part with:  a dirty sock.

four a.m. feeding

I light no lamp
i go by ache
and touch

the song of your hunger
guides me
to your humid nest   my hands
curl under your arms and lift

it’s instinct this gift
i give you at night
i know you
differently
smell you   when i can’t see you

buttons to unfasten
half asleep
it’s hard to work my fingers
and juggle you
but sooon   i fold you
in the crook of my arm
these pouches of stone
four hours without you
look what it does

you seek me
blindly   rooting for the source
i croon
it is there
i melt and gush
you choke break cough
too much
too fast
gurgling to your belly

milk splatters your face and fuzzy scalp
milk sweet and warm   such
plenty to grow on

i nuzzle your head
and rock the chair
slip my hand
under your gown
to fondle

your miniature toes

little peach little plum
i cannot imagine you
grown
-Jane Eaton Hamilton from “Body Rain”