The Bargain

I must be gentle with my baby.
I must make her world
like a soft focus film,
all fuzzy and sweet.

So I rock my baby
and sing quiet songs,
bathe her in calendula,
dress her in cotton.

In exchange, she screams, arches her back,
contorts her gone-maroon face,
flails her tiny clenched fists,
kicks her scrawny wrinkled legs.

Her cheek is covered with scratches
from raking her vicious nails
across its delicate surface.
She is a baby from the briar patch.

Three weeks old,
she sucks so hard on her knuckles
she makes a wound like a burn
that refuses to heal.

My nipples crack, bleed, scab over.
Every two hours,
greedy, insatiable,
she sucks off the scabs, I bleed again.

In ninety degree heat,
I wear thick nursing pads
or I’m drenched with milk
each time she yells.

Her many fluids, her spit, her shit,
erupt with elemental force,
drip from the tasteful curtains,
the charming changing table.

Terrible guard,
she keeps me locked in this house,
hungry, dirty, exhausted.

Still – I am gentle with my baby.

I swaddle her agitated limbs,
trim her transparent nails,
wash the curtains,
wipe down the table.

I rock and sing,
coo and smile,
offer my aching breasts
again and again.

I accept my task:
to teach her my tenderness,
drag her toward gentleness:
my baby ball and chain.