The books say that milk letdown
feels like pins and needles
but when you’re pumping at work
it’s more like lungs constricting
under the crush of chlorinated water.
You know, god willing, when she’s 16 or 25
you’ll never be this essential again.
So remember this smothering need now,
the engorged breasts, the suction, the release.
Know the ache swelling and flowing from you,
is caused by your hands cradling plastic bottles,
that your warm, twisting baby is elsewhere,
away from you. Know the sadness will threaten
to sweep you under, each time you take out the pump
and you can’t swim away from it. You must do this for her.
You must stay, you must drown.