Tuesday Dec 10

GrahamMelanie Melanie Graham holds a PhD in poetry from the University of Lancaster, UK and recently completed her MFA at Sierra Nevada College. Her poems have appeared in Drunken Boat, Cherry Tree, The Mailer Review, a​nd as a finalist in several competitions, including The Southeast Review, Split This Rock, a​nd So To Speak. She won the 2016 Kakalak Poetry Prize. Her sonnet for Sylvia Plath is forthcoming in Fat Gold Watch, an anthology dedicated to Plath.
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My Son, Nursing


I type with one hand,
           pause when the nipple slips, realign

his rooting. He laughs at nothing,
           what the angels whisper, my mother says.

His twist-knot nose is my father's, someone
           neither of us will know, though, lately,

the man pesters my dreams in flight suit
           and shiny boots, talking without sound

and I know it's wrong
          to search one so small for a streak of mean,

but it's the bluish-gray eyes, the smile
           when he kicks the crib till his toes bleed,

how his lips keep moving
           after I've pulled away.