Lifeblood

I am poking through the freezer looking for something
that resembles dinner when I find them hidden
behind a box of peas, two bags of breast milk, unopened

and outdated. Ghosts of my son who is no longer a baby.
At 12 months he has weaned himself, a man in diapers
who despises bottles, preferring to eat what is on our plates.

Only one passage of the calendar but already he is living
his own life and in the exuberant chaos of his days this food,
pumped from my own body, has gone untouched. I hold

the bags, one in each hand, and remember the late nights
when, full and aching, I poured myself into plastic containers
for my son. A futile gesture now that he has tasted

the world’s offerings, but to dump this gift down the drain
like the dregs of day-old coffee would feel profane,
so I pour the milk into our garden, freshly dug and ready

for the tomato sets and pepper plants and sunflower seeds
still sitting in the garage. I stir myself into the black earth,
quench its thirst, waiting for another round of life.