Weaning

by DeAnna Jones

He won't take my breast now.
the milk has changed,
my smell, the skin of the areolas
has turned in the progesterone of pregnancy.

He wants me.
I saw it last night in the half-light,
trying to walk him to sleep for the second time.
In his exhaustion and frustration,
he beat my shoulder,
his face scrunched up and puckered,
almost like a grown man's, that rage,
the merging of the adult and the baby,
two faces mirrored, juxtaposed
in unison on the same surface.
I saw him speak from beyond
his wordlessness, his lack.

When I sat down and offered my breast
again for the fourth or fifth time that day,
he buried his head in it,
mouth opened but unlatched,
unable to latch,
his hand already pushing me away,
his cry downward, into my arm,
into the cradle space of my body
that he is having to outgrow.

DeAnna Jones lives in Frisco, Texas with her husband and 11-month old son, and she is expecting her second child in September. Her work has appeared in IIlya's Honey, Venue, Zillah, Palpable and Mute: An anthology by the Dallas Poets Community and Courier: An anthology of Women Poets. Her work is forthcoming in Rattle and TCU's literary journal, Descant.