An Ethiopian Woman Nursing | John Grey

Nursing a baby, the worried trees trouble her.
Her breast pokes through her unbuttoned blouse
and the wind blows the branches about incessantly
Tiny lips suck on her nipple, declaring
with tiny bites, that this is the first
free meal, as walls shake, windows rattle,
the oak slaps against the house.

Nursing a baby, she nudges the rocking chair
back and forth, her only input to the hunger
at her chest, the storm working up its rage.
She moves to a chorus of creaks, scraps of sound,
discovering in the urge of her muscle, her bone,
an endless way of going nowhere.

Nursing a baby, she bends her head over the
child's to protect it from the lightning,
covers tiny ears from errant thunder.
The infant sucks on regardless of the weather,
regardless of the constant sway of the body
all around her. She is nursing a mother.
To do that, you feed off her and nothing else.