Milk & Water preview

We are gearing up for the release of Milk & Water by Amy Watkins. Here is a sneak peek of the book, and probably one of the best poems we have ever published.

Never Never

Outside the supermarket, beside the fiberglass horses,

women gossip about a dead child in the newspaper.

The mothers must blame the mother,

and they do; another way of saying

That will never happen to me.

My mother, buying milk and bread for her living children,

knows better.

I will sing an ode to fear and call it

Never Never Never.

I’ve made it too, the impossible promise
I will never let anything happen to you.

But I fell and watched my baby falling.

I thought I’ve ruined you.

I thought I’ve killed my child.

I must surely die.

And as I watched her, later, sleeping, hurt but

healing, I thought I will never

I will never

But I will.

And my mother is still walking to and from my sister’s grave.

And my daughter is older now than my sister lived to be.

And the women outside the supermarket

are still feeding quarters to the fiberglass horses, saying

Never Never Never

while their children lunge forward and are pulled

gently, mechanically back. 

Milk & Water by Amy Watkins will be available for pre-orders soon, and fully released February 25th.