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Fontanelle

Breastfeeding has not been what I had always imagined it to be: my body giving itself to the baby's body. More, it has felt as if the baby were pulling a knotted rope through my nipples. And in these moments the baby has seemed not to be the tiny human she is, but a shriveled old fisherman. Some days I imagine she is carving her face onto my body; others, that I am playing her like a bagpipe, squeezing her under my arm. I always thought breastfeeding would be graceful and gentle like a Mary Cassatt painting, but most of the time it hurts. I get blocked ducts and mastitis. I get lumps and blisters. My nipples bleed. And yet, something in me is resilient. I listen with earbuds to Willie Nelson and Sinead O'Connor singing "Don't Give Up." My husband arranges it for saxophone and piano and makes us a recording.