Cheerio Petals

Amanda Auerbach


My sister’s baby sucks at nipple of bottle how
I feel right now eating cheerios
from fingers do not get enough when enter my mouth.
Cannot help but
lick them in way that is nourishing. Nourishment happens so slowly
more is coming. As the baby looks
the milk still in the bottle I reach down into the box where there is
a where there is more.


Cheerios are what babies are allowed to;
my sister and I kept doing that older.
We did not like milk as if when young we had to suppress
being infants rather than people. My sister
does not drink milk still.
Not being an infant so wanting one. Cannot live
on cheerios alone cannot keep
children who are young enough to want
to disown.


The color yellow and the red heart on the box remind me parts
of childhood are nice not
embarrassing. Does that include eating
cheerios with fingers? Depends how feel
about oral development. How feel
about the fantasies used to exchange with my sister
before we had our own
were attracted to people. Like eating
slowly just kept talking I do not know if
content important, embarrassing.


Find it embarrassing when I feed
the baby and everyone looks as if I am next.
Being looked at implies I should be
embarrassed by would rather have cheerios with
milk it ran out. Like baby looking
for object that could be held up to mouth no one else
cares. When eat cheerios
it is hard to use mouth for
words which could care
about other things what will happen if what we are
eating is gone.