RITA MAE REESE

Meaning To Milk

From the Sanskrit duh,
           the world gets a stream
of daughters, daughters
           begetting daughters.
From hungry newborns
           opening our mouths
to the sincere milk
           of words, to Jael
with milk and spike for
           the fleeing Canaanite
(whose voice made the walls
           shake and wild animals
fall dead), to young maids
           pulling and pulling
the white streams into
           the pails of morning