Catch the Letdown

They say a manual pump will help me catch the letdown—
the milk that seeps from the other breast when my baby suckles,
milk I catch now in a blue cloth I drape over his body,
then toss in the wash.

They say if I catch the letdown, maybe I can have
a “freezer stash,” each bag of milk stacked brick-like,
each bag a unit of time that I can be away from my child.

I don’t catch the letdown, but I pump when I can,
cash those bags in like chips—this one to go to the barber, this one
to see a friend, this one for a trip to the library to write.

I say I can’t catch the letdown—because of my chest hair,
the pump won’t stick—but maybe I like the sheer dribbling excess,
the frantic grasping for a cloth to save my baby’s outfit,
the sense of having more than enough.