Sydney
Three weeks and my milk is in
and Lucas is feeding well
and I am learning
the soft tug of his suck
his smell and his opened eye,
his jerky movements
his tiny penis and his skin of silk.
My vagina is healing
and my strength returning.
If Megan were to hold him
close for hours
I think that her breasts too
would soon
yield milk.
When we decided to marry
we had not discussed a child
but after two years we decided
and our dear friend
Hugh provided sperm:
I wonder what relationship
might develop between him
and his sort-of son?
Somalia
Three weeks and tomorrow
Ashkir will die.
I have no milk.
The soldiers at the camp
have no interest in babies
and the famine continues
for us but not for them.
Ashkir was conceived
on a drunken raid one night:
soldiers – ‘guarding our camp’!
One whose name I never heard
swaggered, rattling with strings of
ammunition, laughed and jumped me:
there was no help.
I shall follow Ashkir soon.
I still lose blood
and grow weaker.
I’ve seen
many mothers die.
I wait.
Next week I would
have turned fourteen.
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