In the dream,
though I am only two months pregnant,
my breasts are like boulders,
heavy with milk.
My neighbor advises me
to start draining it immediately.
I start to squeeze my nipples
and fill up a few baby bottles
that I bought secondhand.
It’s not enough – I switch
to filling redwoods. My milk
travels through their trunks
and soaks through,
covers the leaves and branches.
I leave the sticky trees
in a clearing, in the dirt.
I feel bad for killing them.
Surabhi Balachander grew up in West Lafayette, Indiana. She is a recent graduate of Stanford University, currently works at Stanford’s Bill Lane Center for the American West, and will begin a PhD program at the University of Michigan in the fall. Her poems appear in Yes Poetry, The Wanderer, and jmww.
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