THE PAINTING I HAVE NEVER PAINTED
BY CATI PORTER

You draw me into your world in vivid-hued suckling stings
as you advance your allowance from my breast
through one cracked nipple.

Each milking stroke of your tongue implies an impulsive color:
crimson areolas; phthalocyanine green veins.
My marbled vaults shudder under your adulation.

I think you may be falling from my lap, you have grown so large.
Ever since you were first in my arms I have wanted
to paint you this way:

slim arc of white like a pale slip
of moonsmile at my breasts, your lips embracing
one pink nipple, your toes curled to the other.

In my Pieta, you are god
and I am your mother. Supple flesh, otherworldly
heft, painterly abstraction.

But you grow so fast the memories of your infancy
feel like rain, coming
and going in sudden showers, in a drizzle, in a silken mist.

The line of time draws you steadily away
from my breast. I portion
the coins of my milk, drop for drop,

as you turn my breasts'
outsides in, empty pockets.
Though I may break like the desert,

turn fissure, turn crack, turn canyon,
gape, my thousand mouths
kiss you with their wounds.