In 1330 BCE, a memorial was erected in Egypt to Maya, Tutankhamun’s wet nurse who “fed the body of a god.”
It sounds so simple.
This giving forth,
the allowing.
Flow of sacred essence
into the wanting mouth.
I did not ask for this honor.
It was bestowed on me,
an inevitable,
the way a seed is planted in an earth
which was not consulted,
or planets keep crossing
a space, disturbing its dreams of innocence.
Each morning I had to prepare myself.
The bathing in the sanctified water.
The purified oils smoothed over the skin.
The temple cloudy with prayers and incense.
Could I satisfy his need?
Some days he would not be filled,
greedy for all I had;
other times he turned his head away, complaining.
The onlookers kept speaking
of Isis and Horus, the divine elixir,
my exalted role.
But I thought only of the other child
taken so soon. Where? Into whose arms?
And of her scent, which I did not know.
