Milk

Washing the udder first, warm water, not too hot, with a squirt of lavender
Dawn dish soap, then gently drying with my t-shirt, Mom always says, “Vaseline on those hands.” I sit on the stool, squeezing the bucket we got from Betty’s Home-style Restaurant that reads “pineapples” between my knees, like the cellist we met in music class, how she swayed back and forth, the cello squeaking once and all the kids laughing but it was my favorite part, and breathing the sweaty, nutty cow smell, in through my nose and out through my mouth, now squeezing thumb and pointer finger
around the udder, now adding all my other fingers, one at a time, pinky, release, start again, rocking and the milk spraying on my tennis shoes (Julie always says they smell rotten, but they smell fine to me) and into the bucket now, a pattering crescendo against the plastic sides—at Greenview Farms down the road, this is when they take out their machine, all metal, rubber and cold, attach it to every teat, like they showed us on that field trip and Robby said that his daddy has one just like it, squeeze and release and only ever get milk, missing this warmth, this quiet, connection, anticipation because there’s a moment, every once in a while, the milk on my fingertips won’t taste like milk but sometimes like burnt crème brûlée or sweet like strawberries and heavy whipping cream or today chocolate chip ice cream with real garden-grown mint.