Step 1: Ensure your baby has just been fed: undress and hold your baby skin-to-skin (benefits include increased thermoregulation, blood oxygen levels, and successful breastfeeding). Tickle the baby’s lips with your nipple, aiming just above their top lip. Watch for an extended tongue. Signs of a good latch include ear movement. Ensure one nostril is free or risk suffocation.

The instructor called Mother demonstrates on a participant called Baby. She holds Baby’s stomach up to her ear: you are not hungry, she scoffs. She places Baby on its back upon a milking stool—it begins to breed. Quiet, Mother says. The Marlboro Pasture tingles and swallows the grazing. Stomachs splutter coagulated dew. Mother herds a sheep toward Baby. The sheep is in need of a shear, it’s face invisible, it’s coat crusty and brown. She positions the sheep’s belly over Baby. Drink, Mother commands.  

I search the flock for a sheep. The pasture curdles and lambs emerge in a panic, emaciated and balding, their rhythmic expulsions revealing mishealed membranes. They watch me with black felted eyes as I place my baby upon my breast. The lambs rupture and grunt. My baby’s mouth clots my nipple. Please latch. Mass guttings and sac spillings. My skin rashes from their unbeating wool. My body milks but my baby turns its head and bleats.

Step 2: Ensure your baby has a clean diaper: lay your baby down on a changing table, it is recommended you fasten the safety straps (never leave your baby unattended on an elevated surface). Remove the dirty diaper and use wipes, always go from front to back to prevent infection (note for newborns: use cotton balls and warm water). Slide a clean diaper under your baby’s bottom. Apply ointments or creams recommended for rashes. Wash your and your baby’s hands to prevent contamination (especially important for sickly babies).

Mother holds Baby’s diaper up to her nose: brig rat she sneers. She places Baby in the snow and says stand like this, demonstrating a militia-like stance. She disappears into a mountainous wasteland, the summits gurgle blizzard and bubble. She re-emerges with a squad of skunks marching behind her. But they are grey in color with long protruding teeth, some with crushed bellies and others missing limbs or faces, as if they had just been scraped off Fairmount Street. Mother grins at their glory and commands them to form a semi-circle around Baby. Wax drips off Baby’s quivering chin. Mother says, Fire, and the animals turn and open themselves.

I shield my baby, but the militia has vanished. My baby grows long teeth. The ice whips us. My baby growls. A mess begins leaking from their diaper. I open my bag to reach for supplies, but my hand submerges in sulfurous slush. Wind and tusks nip us. My baby blubbers. Mossy yolk? I say. The tundra tears us together. Milk-weather blinds us apart. I fall to my belly and bark. I use forceps to untusk my baby, feel them smooth and swollen, a hairless underbelly. But my hands are barbed and bitten, and my baby and I thaw noxious odors. I surrender to Mother for stitches. Her ivory watchtower rubbles and sprouts.

Step 3: Ensure your baby is correctly swaddled: fold the swaddle into a triangle and place your baby in the center (note: not all blankets make proper swaddles). Slightly bend your baby’s right arm alongside its body. Take the same side of the swaddle and secure it across your baby’s chest (note: improper swaddling may cause hip development complications). Slightly bend their left arm and take the remaining swaddle and wrap it over the baby’s chest (always put a time limit on swaddling).

Mother places Baby down and releases an ointment can. Moths sputter out, their ocular arms distend and witch Baby in wrinkled scabs. Rain falls harder now, bruising their eyes. Mother commands their meconium twister. She delights in flailing debris: cut clavicles and crushed skulls, adorning the Bernwood Garden. She thrashes them harder, their wings sloughing green tar onto Baby. The clouds leak spinal fluid. Baby shivers and roots for Mother. The moths obey and hive wirey nests—a cell of predatory protection. Wires swallows Baby. Mother beams and whirls her scissors.

I swat moths. Grease drenches my hands, my baby’s swaddle. I ask Mother if it is okay to wet swaddle, but she had sought shelter. The moths storm our orifices. Their furry twitch our nares causing involuntary dried stump expulsions. The garden orders clang-club infections. The moth’s flap my pelvic floor, an unsuturing, a perineal nesting. We pus cocoons from neck nub deliveries, the fleshy pupas oozing off charred leaves. Cyclonic antennae crown from our mouths. We aspirate larvae. My baby changes color. I attempt the unscabbing of shuddering eggs, but the moth swarm encloses and every swaddle wrap is undone. 

Step 4: Now your baby is ready for sleep: You may rock them while quietly singing or reading. Several signs your baby is entering sleep’s early stages include: eyelid flutters, body startles, or fleeting smiles (also called sleep grins). They may continue a flutter-like sucking. Always place your baby’s back on a flat firm surface. Remove any sleep positioners, pillows, loose bedding, or toys as these may cause chocking or suffocation. (Note: night waking’s serve survival functions against crib death).

Mother nests through the Hoitt scrapyard, collecting aborted metal—an old shipping container—limbing rust over letters that might spell benefit. She places discolored crib protectors inside and lays Baby down. She extends her neck and barks. A wolf lurches out from the freight graves. Its bulge stirs, nearly bursting. Its wasted legs stagger and collapse in the whelp beside Baby. They pant. Mother starts to sing: dear dear decapitation. The wolf and Baby shiver and convulse. They roll in the mess, swallow organs and gnaw on pulsing cables. Cargo does not cry.

My baby cries and refuses sleep. I sing and read through Belmont’s library until my throat breeches. Eventually Mother grows tired, please don’t leave, I beg her. But she does. My baby and I crawl into the shipping canal that now may spell covet. Chaos gestates through the scrapyard. Laborers hack and hum. Sirens bellow. This time, Mother appears. Her lullaby fades as she sutures the canal: grab your hooks and perforate skulls. My vision blurs. The canal grimaces, jolting us sporadically. I think we are loaded onto a ship. Sensations of suspended fluid flood our bellies. The canal constricts. We are not headed somewhere. Mucus mirrors the walls, and I can see. My baby will not sleep, and I grow sickly. Our metrical reflections throb. I call out for Mother. Nobody comes. When there is nothing left, I continue Mother’s lullaby: yolk me mother, dismember our plugged bits.  

Pink Tentacle                              

Julia Moncur is from the shearing shed. She writes manuals for mothering. You may find her amidst her flock, breastfeeding babies between ewes.