Me Suckling, by Julie Cyr

My Nurse and I, by Frida Kahlo (Mexico) 1937

Me Suckling

My nurse holds me while her milk 
sweets me back to health,
soaking my night dress with the dribble 
from her other breast. 

My skin sticky, tasting of sugar and iron.

She wears the mask of caretaker,
repelling tornadoes while I tap
her life force, emptying her breasts
until they're withered like a dried apple.

I look out to the only sky I know,
gray and black, the colour of diablo.
He lives with me and I curse his name
but he remains– 
my husband.

There's nothing milky about him.
If I tasted his nipple it would ooze tequila
and another woman's lips. 

He doesn't hold me like mama,
my Indio nurse does.
I gaze at her, mouth agape 
taking in her sugary elixir,
my salvation,
my weakness,
myself in another life.

Julie Cyr

Julie Cyr has been published by Slipstream, Blood and Thunder Journal, Broad River Review, and Lost Horse Press in the Nasty Women Poets Anthology, among others. She was awarded 2014 Best of Poetry by Blood and Thunder Journal, a finalist in the 2016 Rash Awards for Poetry, awarded a scholarship from Murphy Writing of Stockton University in 2018, nominated for a 2019 Pushcart Prize, and won first place in the 2020 Poetry Society of NH Member's contest. Julie holds an MFA in creative writing from Lesley University. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and two sons.