by Isabel Cristina Legarda

Content Warning: Animal cruelty.

 

My mother cannot hug me back.
I run to her, embrace her frame.
It’s not the milk I yearn for most
(that “unibreast in an upper-thoracic, sagittal position”).

I run to her, embrace her frame:
agglomerate of wood, sponge rubber, terry cloth,
that unibreast in upper-thoracic, sagittal position.
Feed me, yes, but hold me, hold me, you

agglomerate of wood, sponge rubber, terry cloth.
Protect me when the metal monster bares its fangs.
Feed me, yes, but hold me, hold me. You
do not move to save my skin, to share my plight,

protect me when the metal monster bares its fangs.
The “rape rack.” The pit beneath the pyramid.
Do not move to save my skin, to share my plight,
but seeing they can break our hearts, break us away.

The rape rack, the pit beneath the pyramid:
he wants to see how suffering will drive us mad
and, seeing they can break our hearts, break us away
all the more from our kindred. Sick, sick primates.

He wants to see how suffering will drive us bad.
The nature of love, he calls this study. Learning
all the more from our kindred, sick, sick primates
“stripped of unnecessary bulges and appendices.”

The nature of love, they call this study, learning
it’s not the milk I yearn for most.
Stripped of unnecessary bulges and appendices,
my mother cannot hug me back.

 

 

 

Author’s note: Psychologist Harry Harlow experimented on infant rhesus macaque monkeys in the 1950’s by separating them from their mothers and rearing them using surrogate “mother-substitutes” made of wire frames or of wood structures covered in terry cloth. Harlow’s experiments included intentional frightening of baby monkeys with a mechanical “monster,” the use of surprise attack devices attached to previously-comforting terry cloth mothers, solitary confinement for long periods, and for older monkeys, forced mating. His now-classic study of parent-child attachment, published in 1958, was entitled “The nature of love;” the description of the “unibreast” in the poem is taken directly from the study’s abstract.

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Isabel Cristina Legarda was born in the Philippines and spent her early childhood there before moving to the U.S. She is currently a practicing physician in Boston. Her work has appeared in the New York Quarterly, Smartish Pace, FOLIO, The Dewdrop, The Lowestoft Chronicle, West Trestle Review, and others. Her chapbook Beyond the Galleons was published in April 2024 by Yellow Arrow Publishing. She can be found on Instagram: @poetintheOR.