Mother's Milk, & the ghost in your air con by Rae White
Mother's milk
Each of your milk teeth, toddler shoe-
boxed under your mother’s bed.
You giggle, call out
her sentimentality but I’m dizzy
at dinner, preoccupied
with thoughts of tinkling
dentin slipping on my palm.
I excuse myself, lurch
into the bedroom.
My arm zigzags in the dark
touching fusty carpet before finding
the muted box compact with dust.
Pinpoint fingers remove
one creamy molar.
You drive me home & with haste
I kiss you goodbye. I’m excited
close to ravenous
as I close my door & pick
the gem from my jeans
pocket & place it in my
mouth. I roll it leisurely
with tongue, let it clink
like ice cubes in empty
glass. I swallow
feel it scrape & chafe
lodge in my throat.
That night, its crystal
teratoma grows eggy bulge
forming restless
dreams of mountain peaks
lost in a vortex
of sinew & snow.
In the bright mirror morning, I scratch
at flaked skin & peel lengths
of stringy flesh to expose
crackle quartz jutting from my neck.
It glimmers & hums, my beautiful
crystalline baby
the only jewellery
I’ll ever wear.
Earlier version first published in Gargouille Literary Journal.
the ghost in your air con
frail blue & sickly
drizzle. we try enticing
it with salted almonds & stale
elastic bands. sit edgy & vibrating
in the back seat, giggling, talking shit.
it escapes while we're
kissing. caterpillar-lollops
out the wound-down window.
sighs & somersaults
onto the bitumen.
First published in Woolf Pack zine.
Executive Producers
Sarah Hunt
Daniel Henson
Sue White
