Family Recipe

Nothing in this world is stronger than a mother's love for her baby
no force on heaven or earth can come between her and her newborn
forming that special link, you let yourself think you're inseparable maybe
she's feeding her young from her own breast in the harshest winter of their village forlorn
if father doesn't hurry home he won't beat the blizzard and they won't eat more than a week
she winces at a torn nipple, her teething baby suckles as she juggles the corded phone
little more than a paper cut, her husband is out there still, the lines are down, weather bleak
she rocks her baby gently, little fingers, little mouth, she thinks "I can't ride this out alone..."
rolling blackouts for the next four days, it's dangerously below freezing outside.
Her infant wakes her up with screams in the night, hungry or dirty and she goes to tend
her stomach is rumbling in pain, she's been rationing what was there, but the generator's fried
she can't cook unless the grid is on, and her infant wakes her in the night, wailing, needy and loud until she almost can't pretend
six days and the radio is spotty, coverage shoddy, people are buried alive.
She's so hungry, so thirsty, this thing is draining her from the tit for milk and blood
her whole home is under and she is terrified she won't survive
there's nothing to eat or drink, no space to rest, no time to think, God why couldn't it be a flood?
She is suffering, the pain is crippling and she collapses on her way to the nursery in the dead of night
her body is trying to move without her, but she has so little strength to continue the fight.
She comes to a painful sensation, there's a thing on her chest draining more from her, a parasite
repulsed, she reacts and moves away, crying out in fright!
Eight days in, they're saving people topside
Nine days, she's using the crib for wood and sleeping fireside.
The night of the tenth day, they were digging her halfway buried house out from the horrendous mess of snow
her husband had been swept off the road on his way back from the store, a tragic way to go
the air was cold and still
they could see fire's glow as they cracked the window sill
embers floating freely all about
the chimney had signaled them that someone was trapped inside, desperate to get out
rescue searched for not even a full moment, before their eyes fell upon a horror they could not soon escape
the infant sitting next to mother with her breast exposed as she lay on her back, dead with her mouth agape.