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Board Administrator Username: mjm
Post Number: 3990 Registered: 11-1998
| Posted on Tuesday, July 19, 2005 - 8:28 pm: |
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Honorable Mention Absence and Dairy Farming Treezaa (T. E. Ballard) Small hiss of a machine hooked up to teats, white tubes flowing over my head and the taste of shit in my mouth. The sweet taste of cow burning my nose and falling down to my tongue. The calf was born too soon nursed on the tail of my shirt sucking wet flannel till she found my hand. It was here I began to mother to thrust my thumb to the waiting mouth and hope it was enough. When Olivia was born my nipples curled in. It was a process of pulling, pushing the pink skin till the aureole grew red. Always there was this fear that her small body would fall from my hands or my breasts would offer her only sand. I thought often of the calf her mother shut in some pen both crying out for the other. How at ten I believe myself savior, a god who produced manna from the tips of her fingers till the white skin flowered.
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