Spoiled Milk
The film turns a leaky yellow
like weathered and sweaty silk
I drink it from a fox skull
a nectar of putrid humours
to calm the nerves
to slow the creak
I lick the fat teeth of the sick heifer.
The wolves whisper of the dead,
they tell me, ‘there’s nothing more we can do for you’
the milk won’t help it's only as
nourishing as borax
the seal births a new calf
and I grind the dried vernix
into muesli
a breast was drained today
one that was not mine but that belonged to the trees
I regret all of it.
Spoiled Milk + Wet Specimen is out of print from The Blasted Tree Store
Featured by The Blasted Tree: June 15, 2018
Erin Emily Anne Vance
Contributing Author
Other works on The Blasted Tree:
Spoiled Milk by Erin Emily Ann Vance is a Blasted Tree original poem
Edition of 50 leaflets published in Canada
Feature image by Kyle Flemmer - Bat image from Château de La Rochefoucauld en Angoumois by E. Bauhain & J. Godefroy, 1893 (Courtesy of the British Library).