St Giles, Patron Saint of Breastfeeding, Blesses the Milk

equates his thirst 

to knowledge, holds his own lack 

as a badge – he knows, he says, 

what it’s like to latch a babe 

to the beck of the breast, to be strung 

to a mother, to put his own mouth 

to the world and suck it

dry. he knows, he says, how tired 

it makes him, how unbelievably exhausted, 

how it must feel to be a mother, he knows, he says, 

from lived experience, the toll it takes, how much 

he needed, how much need was unmet. 

then where is the one who did the work, 

where is the breast, where is the mother 

in this particular patronage. fuck 

off Giles. you do not know the blocked 

ducts, you do not know the night 

feeds, only as night-fed, you don’t know 

the way the body buckles under strain 

of supplying. give me a lactating mother 

whose let down leaks, whose latch 

is unsure, whose nipples crack, whose milk

is tinged with blood, who loves, 

whose body has burst

its banks. 

Vic Punch