Elle Woods | Eloise Sinwell

BRIEF BLUE PERIOD | TOSCA LANGBERT | Colored Pencil

SEEING THROUGH MILK

Lily Forbes

Milk cascading from the dull pitcher Drips with the deafening pulse of time. I examine the meager trickle of sweat formulating Beneath Mum’s rutted brow.

Her cold visage and somber lips Peer down into the little white puddle forming beneath her, Exhausted eyes glaring back at themselves.

Paint chipped walls whisper woebegone truths, Seeming to utter, “this will all be yours one day.”

The callused hands? The sorrowful glances? The pungent cheese and stale bread atop some old cloth? The laborious hours spent in a house that’s not mine? The husband I don’t recognize And the daughter I don’t have time for?

No more milk left in the pitcher. The ticking of time continues to spill.

Inspired by “The Milkmaid” by Vermeer