Unmothering

           When my oldest child was nearly two and still 
breastfeeding, the women in my family tried to convince me 
           it was time to wean; to put a stop to breasts filling up 

and engorging, then as if on cue leaking at her slightest
          whimper. Fig-shaped and tapered, these bowls
flooded ducts with their milky sap—oh how this liquid

         laminated the lips, the throat that bore it through  
the body's silo like waterfalls of grain. I was offered   
        what they called a remedy: stroke the juice of red  

chilies on the dark ring around each nipple like a wound, 
         introduce the sour burn of a first repulsion— but how 
could I bear it? It's said a parent's duty goes beyond feeding

        and rearing, beyond lining the nest so an otherwise 
unnatural world might somehow feel warm as that womb 
       of first remembrance. When we say nature takes its course,

we mean what happens will take its place among the sign-
         posts of a life with no  need for any intervention. Faster
than seasons fruit and shatter, time takes the horns again

          and steers them. In the end, I am the one straining  
to hear a word, aching for the clutch of need once fastened  
         to my breast as if it could never bear such cleaving.