When My Daughter Puts Her Hand Down My Shirt for Milk

It doesn’t happen often anymore—
after a long day, when I’ve yelled
Just calm down!
and am talking to myself.
 
I brush her cheek with my hand,
and she plays it off as a joke—
but I know she’s looking for the mother
who could give and give,
 
the milk threading out. 
Oxytocin once made me better 
than myself, a serene Madonna with child.
Today there is only skin
 
stretched over bone, my eyes rivered in veins;
there is only the thirst
of the child inside who cries
and looks for her own comfort first.