Mother Milk

by Sam Roxas-Chua, adopted from the Philippines to the USA, artist, writer and calligrapher

Inspired By A Pool of Milk

The first hum was the mother, the second were the afterthoughts of thunder. And inside that soft carapace, that umbrella, that umbra of red made pulses—the infant, buoyant in the tearing of skin apex and murmur. The infant’s first evidence of gravity-pull is through hiccup, coo, and sound. The first call of the lips is milk. The first milk is the ocean. The first ocean was made from a bed. The first bed was a gouge of earth, the first gouge was a fist to my face—my father is a planet. My first planet was home to thunder. My first thunder was my voice, lightning-born—short fuses of stories in search of dimmer lights. Stories, throat-made—thirsty for milkloss & mother.