The Wet Nurse

1. The Wet Nurse Speaks Undeliverable. You were stuck, in the inner sanctum, not winged but subterranean. There was no extracting the sliver of your body and your mother suffered nightmares, night sweats, nightwalking, felt an aberration in her mind, a mutation. She dreamt of the metallurgy of torture and said her daughter would become a detective, examine the hormonal drippings, as she, momentarily, slipped out of her life.   2. The Mother Speaks, as a Witness She fed you for me, brushed by a spider plant, and you cried for her, not me. A tusk of milk thrust out from her. I could not sleep then, or if I did I had the nightmare over and over again. My brow wet, lips chapped, and she was there, scuff marks on the wood, so I knew she was there, that was the proof, evidence.   3. The Detective Speaks about her Dead Wet Nurse This wet nurse is dried up. Crushed bone is her postmortem milk. My knees are blanched patches. I know blizzards, outlines of chalk, unnerving trails, crystals, slack bags and wintry fingerprints. Dehydrated apples remind me of her deathbed, how she looked tarnished, too often touched. Where to put her? Maybe she would do well beside a ceramic dish. I dream of an avalanche, her ashes flying down, no longer sweet, a torrent of salt.