Milk-fed

The platypus is a mammal that is a monotreme—
a mammal that gives birth to offspring by laying

eggs. Like other mammals, it produces milk; but 
unlike all other mammals, it has no breasts, no 

outflaring areolae, no nipples. Instead, its milk oozes 
out of glands, condensing in runnels on skin—

Imagine your newborn child licking the surface 
of your body through the day for sustenance: 

its rough little sandpaper tongue, its hunger a whole 
sheet of paper eager for constant priming. When I 

went back to work or had to travel, I used to pump 
my milk into bottles for freezing, because my daughters 

refused any kind of formula. In the soft fluorescent 
glow of the night light, they'd spit out the mix, cry

piteously in their footed pajamas as if to say they'd rather 
starve than drink any poor substitute for the milk I made.