'Hindmilk' by Susan Holcomb

I read on the Internet that breastmilk comes in two forms: the watery foremilk, which comes at the beginning of the feeding session, and the calorie-rich hindmilk, which arrives at the end. When my baby suckles I imagine her traversing these two stages as I count down the minutes on my phone. Often, she breaks the latch too early, and this becomes our first inside joke: “Don’t feed me hindmilk!” I say, impersonating her. “Hindmilk tastes yucky!”

In the fridge, where I store the meager ounce or two I am able to produce when my baby refuses to nurse, the hindmilk congeals in a yellowed, fatty ring. I always feel an impulse to run my finger around this ring and lick. The rich-looking hindmilk rouses my appetite like the last bit of ice cream melted at the bottom of a bowl.

Out driving today, we passed a small brown calf suckling its mother, its head craning up to meet the teat. The mother cow, huge in my rearview mirror, looked off to the side, away from her baby. I followed her gaze past the dairy barn, out to the open field, where green tufts of grass were waiting.

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Susan Holcomb holds an MFA in writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and studied for a PhD in physics at Cornell. Her writing has been published in the Southern Indiana Review, The Boston Globe, Epiphany, and elsewhere. Her chapbook WOLFBABY, a collection of flash fiction, won the 2023 Cupboard Pamphlet chapbook contest and will be published this year. She lives in Los Angeles.