Pilgrimage
a prose poem to a breastfeeding baby
Your weight thrills me. When you fall asleep and sag into my elbow, the joint aches with wonder. Wonder that I am allowed to help create this. Fifteen pounds of boy built purely with breast milk. The more my back and arms twinge, the more pride twitches its lips and flicks its glossy tail. Body image, cursed byword of the teenage years, heralds what must be womanhood with something closer to awe. My stomach grew to three times its size in skin defying acrobatics and made a man, a man in the making.
Eating becomes akin to righteousness. Entering at the crimson draped door, food churns through ropes of intestines. Some sent to the bile tank, some shipped to the fat cells, and some, blessed offering, chosen for the milk glands to convert into creamy droplets sucked hard into your eager mouth: streams of water from the rock never met with more amazement or delight. When you are fifteen and giving me hugs to be nice, I will think of this moment and smile because you will not want to remember that my milk sustains you, calms you, grows you.
Shifting you gingerly, mindful of the newly painted sleep still wet upon your face, I ready for the transfer. Arms lower gently to the sheets until your breathing returns to its oceanic chant. You slip into slumber as a seal slides into dark waves, and I stand for a moment at the sacred site. Watch you breathe this earth air. Fierce tears spring up at your gorgeous length, your graceful sprawl, your poise for growth.
I love this. My boys are 14 and 15 now, huge gangly teenagers, and my baby girl is 12. It's been a long time since I held a nursing baby. I miss it, but you take me right back. It doesn't seem that long and I can still feel the suck and pull of a hungry mouth. My 14 year old boy was a 25 pound exclusively breastfed 9 month old. I lost so much weight eating cake and pastries while he sucked down the calories. It's such a miracle what our bodies can do.
This is stunning, Abigail. Absolutely breathtaking writing. It’s tender and raw, poetic and visceral, and somehow holds both reverence and humor in perfect balance. Thank you for sharing this - it feels like a holy thing.
The line “fifteen pounds of boy built purely with breast milk” had me grinning 😁, while “aches with wonder” and “crimson draped door” brought a lump to my throat. You’ve turned biology into liturgy. Honestly, there are phrases here that could sit in a cathedral and not feel out of place. And that ending? “You slip into slumber as a seal slides into dark waves…” That’s so hauntingly beautiful I had to stop and reread it.
I hope you keep writing more of these. This is the kind of thing that makes strangers weep in grocery store parking lots when they remember it. I mean that in the best possible way. 😂❤️