Lindsay Kellar-Madsen
MILK & MARROW
Moon-milk pooled from my body then—
wet cushions and capillaries wicked.
You refused sleep upstairs, so we stayed—
tucked under the yolk-
yellow streetlights. A proto-planet
of beginnings, we were banished
blankets sleeping and soft
bodies left to our unspooling.
—
You wish me dead every day now.
Though I doubt you know the grave
your rage digs under my ribs.
What is this vacuum beneath us?
Starlings skate a frozen lake.
Moles burrow blind in the yard.
Everyone knows hunger
is kept in cold ovens.
How much it takes to make bones
and bread. You are unsatisfied,
and deny my seeded rye.
Would you rather a freshly snapped
femur? Here, take two
of my teeth. I swear
it will never cost you. No one said
stretching marrow was safe.
Lindsay Kellar-Madsen writes compulsively in rare sleeves of time. She lives in the Danish countryside with her husband and four children, who only wear shoes when necessary. Some of her poems live with The Shore, Humana Obscura, Porkbelly Press and Snapdragon Journal. She published two children’s books , The Lovely Haze of Baby Days and Meet the Wild with Little Otter Press.