Melody Wilson
The Smell of Lambing
—after a comment by Barbara Drake
A friend says she’s nostalgic
for lambing, for the smell she loves
but will never experience again.
I imagine lanolin, grass, the birth
of kittens—a scent so narrow
it tears from recognition. Inside
becoming out. My daughter was born
to a world of latex and soap. I bled
for weeks. The flow contracted
from tide to trickle, slowed
to a keening thread, then quit. Kittens
hadn’t prepared me. No one else
was home, so I crouched
under the desk as the tabby panted,
licked under her tail until a globe emerged
writhing. She tore it open, returned
to heaving. I don’t recall what became
of her, but last night I had dinner
with my daughter. For an instant I thought
I had hurt her—I can never be sure.
The skin between us stretched so taut
I sometimes get it wrong. It catches
my breath, the risk of her dwindling
further away, this girl who unearthed me,
pressed elbows and knees into my soil,
whose exit still, a lifetime later, leaves me bleeding.
Formerly published in MER Vol. 22 Ages/Stages
Melody Wilson’s work appears in Sugar House Review, VerseDaily, The Fiddlehead, Tar River Review,
Kestrel, Crab Creek Review, and Pangyrus. She received 2022 Pushcart nominations from Redactions and Red Rock Review and was semi-finalist for the Pablo Neruda Award. Her chapbook Spineless: Memoir in Invertebrates came out in August 2023. She is pursuing her MFA at Pacific University. Find her work at melodywilson.com.